The president of TAP says the recent strike has forced him to resize the company.
Fernando Pinto today sent a letter to TAP workers, praising those who worked to minimise the damage of the recent ten day strike but making it clear that he now will start to downsize the company.
"The strike again put us in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, affecting the company's image and its credibility."
The TAP boss praised those who worked through the strike period "so that our flights remained or, when this was prevented by the strike, that there were adequate alternatives in the shortest amount of time."
According to Pinto, TAP is struggling with structural problems caused by low-cost competition and with strikes.
The president of the airline, which is due to be sold off to one of a dwindling number of suitors, aims to "adjust the company to a size suitable to allow a solid base for reconstruction and the subsequent preparation for a new growth cycle."
Pinto stresses that "this work is indispensable, regardless of the ongoing privatisation process."
The question of why this structural problem at TAP has not already been addressed lies in Pinto’s lap.
Just days before the bids are to be opened, Pinto presides over a strike-torn, debt-ridden business which will struggle to achieve anything near the figure he first thought of when drafted in over a decade ago with one mission, to prepare the airline for sale.
There is little remaining doubt that should the business be sold off, Pinto will not be part of the new management.
It is almost as if the government has allowed TAP to decline just before its planned sale date.
