TAP has refused permission to SPAC (the Portuguese syndicate of civil aviation pilots) to hold a plenary meeting on Friday, for fear it could affect 120 flights, carrying around 20,000 passengers. Explains Expresso, the meeting was likely to attract up to 400 pilots – and SPAC has narrowly stepped back from calling an all-out strike over continued application of pay-cuts. Says TAP’s CEO Christine Ourmières-Widener: “realisation of a plenary assembly in the current circumstances would be likely to cause unsupportable damage to the company, and to the image of the country, in the context of the progressive but still fragile recovery of TAP”. TAP’s return to profitability is “dependent on State support which presupposes scrupulous compliance with the restructuring plan”, she said.
