“We are used to post-covid growth of 20% and 30% and this is unthinkable in the long term in any sector. What we are seeing now is a leveling off of growth, which is normal. Structurally if we grow 3%, 4%, 5% It is always good and it is preferable to growing 30% one year and falling the next year.”said Luís Rodrigues today in Porto.
The Executive Chairman (CEO) of TAP recalled that the company is dependent on growth until the end of 2025, due to the restructuring plan negotiated with Brussels, namely the fact that it cannot increase the fleet.
“It is the imposition of the restructuring plan,” he recalled, adding that the company’s growth will be achieved by “exchanging smaller aircraft for larger aircraft, and through” price increases.
“And that leads us to 6% to 7% growth over the next two years. I think two years is reasonable,” said Luís Rodrigues during the 48th Congress of the Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (APAVT) in Port.
The company is finalizing the budget for next year and with these percentages for operational results and turnover it is working, an official source confirmed to Lusa.
In the first half of the year, TAP achieved an operating result of 108 million euros, 2,354.5% more than in the same period last year.
“It’s completely healthy. More than that is not even desirable at this point, because we need to consolidate a structure – the one we are putting together – that makes the company structurally profitable and sustainable forever or for the longest possible period,” he explained, keeping in mind that “it is reasonable” to assume that “there will be ‘other covids’”.
“I don’t know when, I don’t know how, I don’t know in what form, but it will happen. And if we are intoxicated by significant growth and we suddenly experience such an experience, things become much more difficult. So right now this is what we are looking for,” concludes Luís Rodrigues.
On August 30, TAP announced that it had made a profit of 22.9 million euros in the first half of this year, after posting a loss of 202.1 million euros in the same period last year. It was the first time that the airline achieved positive results in the first six months of a year, since the half-yearly results were published (2019).
This net result represented an improvement of 225 million euros compared to the same half of last year. Moreover, compared to 2019, the period after the Covid-19 pandemic, it represents an increase of 134.9 million euros.
When asked today whether these first-half results could be due to the management of former executive president Christine Ourmières-Widener, the current CEO opined that “there are different perspectives to look at this”.
‘One is that the results are primarily due to our customers, many of whom are here [agentes de viagens] and also the direct one. If there were no direct customers and agencies buying tickets, there would be no results for anyone. They also owe a lot to the TAP employees who made this possible. They are owed to the shareholder who supported the company. And ultimately, it is thanks to the taxpayers who ‘agreed’ to contribute, so that TAP continues to exist today and continues to deliver better results,” explains the person in charge.
Luís Rodrigues then pointed to another possible approach, namely personalization, he says.
“The way I formulate it internally is very simple: a quarter of these results are due to management and strategy up to 2014 [gestão Fernando Pinto], the bet on Brazil. Without Brazil we wouldn’t be here. A quarter is due to the strategy from 2014,2015 to 2017, 2018, the betting strategy in North America [Antonoaldo Neves]. A room is required [à estratégia] 2019 to 2021 [Christine Ourmières-Widener, com cortes de custos e por aí fora e aguentar durante o covid. E um quarto deve-se àquilo que nós fizemos pelo ajuste da estratégia e por aquilo que conseguimos fazer em seis meses alavancando em cima disto tudo”, sustentou.
Source: DN
