The strike scheduled by TAP pilots in Portugal for Easter is still very much on the table.
National press reported on Tuesday that it was due to be called off after the Ministry of Finance approved a deal signed by TAP to restore labour conditions withdrawn in 2021. However, pilots’ union SPAC has confirmed that it has yet to receive official confirmation of this.
“So far, we haven’t received any official information regarding the Finance Ministry or TAP’s approval of the agreement,” a union source told Eco newspaper on Wednesday.
Thus, the strike will remain scheduled between April 7 and 10 until official confirmation is received by SPAC, the source added.
This means that travellers seeking to fly to or from Portugal using TAP still face uncertainty, at a time when European travel is already being disrupted by air traffic control strikes in France.
The union explained last week that the agreement proposed by TAP includes a series of measures that, although not what initially desired, the pilots considered “sufficient to restore some justice and restore some purchasing power.”
“SPAC’s focus was to solve the issue of pilots fired during the pandemic, who have since been reinstated but are still subject to collective dismissal, and to safeguard the rights of the youngest pilots in the company who, due to the freezing of their progression in recent years, would have an equal salary to those who now join the company,” it said.
While the deal was considered “sufficient”, the strike was later called as the union believed that the “the ministry was not committing to this agreement with the new management” of TAP, referring to the departure of TAP’s current CEO at the end of this month and the entrance of the new CEO, Luís Rodrigues, after mid-April.
