Miguel Pais do Amaral has given up on buying TAP, according to today’s Diário Económico, as he is concerned about the impact of the pilots strike which ended last night.
Just four days before final bids must be submitted, the businessman already has told his team of consultants and advisors to stand down.
Pais do Amaral is in partnership with the American union-buster Frank Lorenzo, regrets the delays in the privatisation process, particularly with regard to the disclosure of the company's results.
The ten day strike also concerns the entrepreneur who said that more time is needed to assess the impact of the strike on the company's accounts.
TAP sent out an upbeat statement to newsrooms today stating that the company managed to fly 70% of its flights each day of the strike, sometimes more.
The pilots union disagrees with this percentage and in its strike report gave numbers that are somewhat different to those presented by the airline. The union claims that only 50% of flights took off and the strike saw 85% of its pilots stay at home.
TAP added that "the effort of most workers helped prevent further damage to TAP," but stresses that "this was a strike without winners and the company now has more difficulties to face in an increasingly aggressive market."
The strike cost TAP between €25 and €35 million in revenue and its management next week will present plans to the government to increase revenue and cut costs to make up the shortfall in projected profit.
In a press conference today, the Minister of the Economy said that the company lost "almost €25 million in revenue" to which can be added "€10 million in compensation payments for of overnight stays, meals and other expenses incurred by passengers.”
In the face of these losses, "the Government is now awaiting a TAP management plan which ensures the minimisation of cash requirements" which have increased due to the strike.
In the same press conference, the Secretary of State for Transport Sérgio Monteiro said that the measures will be presented next week by TAP management which will serve to "mitigate fragility and give greater impetus to the treasury" and that the company will develop develop "a more aggressive commercial strategy" or "cost reductions."
In a perverse statement, Pires de Lima soberly added that the agreement signed in December 2014 with the nine unions at TAP, which provided for a stake in the company on privatisation, was only for members of unions that did not go on strike, thus excluding the pilots union, forgetting perhaps that this was the reason the pilots went on strike in the first place.
The share deal is only "with the unions that have honored their commitments," which leaves out the pilots union SPAC.
Pires de Lima referred to the "irresponsibility" of the pilots union, particularly about the possibility of a new strike.
"It would be unthinkable that after the cost of this strike, the country had to live with the threat of a new strike. I do not believe in this possibility. Most now have distanced themselves from the radical behavior of the SPAC union management," said the minister.
On Friday, at a press conference in Lisbon, the union stated that the cost of an agreement with TAP is less than the impact of the ten day strike.
Comments
When someone offers you a delayed payment, in order to break out of a deadlock that you managed to put him into, do not accept it !
TAP has no value whatsoever because of some spectacular deals made by the resident Brazilian manager. If you understand Portuguese well enough, this video will explain all: https://youtu.be/ibweLR9EXUk
He made TAP buy two Brazilian companies that were very broke. Taxpayers like me, are paying for that and he is still there!
Common Market rules simply forbid any governmental subsidizing. That is why TAP has no Money and is technically broke and surviving on cash-flow.
So, pilots should honour this man, that offered them a deal, delayed payment of an agreed upon income, just to get out of an 'encrenca?' Playing king with their money?
Don't trust any deal with delayed payment!
the Portuguese mentality being so inscrutable ....
So face away from what is the right, makes obvious sense and is the proper way to do something. What is in the best interests of the country and / or community.
Then look for what was always intended by the VIP elite. Something shabby. In this case hoping to make TAP unsaleable .... and keeping it as the 'Portuguese Flag carrier'.
Unfortunately this thinking about 'symbols of a countries influence' is out of date. Irrelevant as the piper playing the tune is the IMF / Troika - and they would be buried in dozens of 'symbols of influence' if it allowed just one bankrupt country to do so.
The IMF / Troika requires Portugal to be a 'lean,mean' ultra competitive state so as to pay back both its own debts and what are likely to be Greece's too.
There must be some pilots in a different union: how can TAP say that 70% of flights took off? These figures are meaningless without some explanation.
Pete G is right, that it is nearly incredible that management of this company has achieved so little in the past 15 years that Pinto has been in charge.
But the Portuguese mentality being so inscrutable, it would not surprise me that there is a conspiracy between management, unions and government to make TAP unsaleable, and so that it has to remain in state hands.
Also it is interesting that only now will TAP look at cost cuts and boosting its income, surely what the management was meant to have been doing for years.
This whole affair is a mess, maybe the rumours are true, that unions and government conspired to reduce the TAP price for a new owner with a share of the spoils later on in brown paper bags...