TAP held 85% of flights in the morning of the second day of the strike – publico

                 

                         
                     

                         
                     

                         

                 

 
                         

The accession of the pilots to strike the TAP remains close to the values ​​of the first day of downtime. Within 12 hours of Saturday, canceled 40 of 263 flights scheduled, which means that remained unfulfilled 15% of air links. These figures are already included flights that would always have to perform under the minimum services decreed by the tribunal in the headquarters of the Economic and Social Council (CES).

                     

                         The numbers refer to the period of Saturday 9am to 12.30pm and point thus to carry out 85% of scheduled flights up to that time. The percentage repeats the values ​​of the first day of downtime, scheduled until 10 May.

The most recent balance sheet, made by the airline at the time of Saturday lunch, realize that they were to perform 28 flights operated TAP and 12 by Portugalia. Of the 223 completed calls, 110 are TAP and the remaining 13 of Portugalia. For this Saturday are scheduled about 300 flights.

The Civil Aviation Pilots’ Union (SPAC) presents other numbers. A sheet sent to PUBLIC, updated at 13:30, the direction of that structure counters that membership is “greater than 70%.” Data from the TAP and the union are not directly comparable because management and unions use different analysis universes.

Unlike the TAP, the SPAC excludes bonds covered by the minimum services and analyzes only the links from Lisbon and scheduled Porto, which reduces the count to 56 planned flights until that time . Of these, count up 14 canceled and 42 made. THE PUBLIC sought a review of the director of the union, but the spokesperson for the SPAC said Hélder Santinhos would not, for now, make a statement.

Positive balance
For TAP, the initial assessment is more positive than expected. “It is clearly superior to the predicted best this time”, responded to the PUBLIC Lucy Knight, a member of the TAP communications direction, noting that “some passengers with canceled flights had achieved flight in other companies.”

Asked about the number of injured passengers, the spokesman said the company does not have that number accounted for, nor the pilots who joined the strike or that appeared to work. Lucy Knight said that just as on Friday, is Portugalia that “it is with higher operating difficulties.” So it is in Porto, where the company’s expression is greater, the effects of the strike are to be more visible.

Faced with an account of some complaints and doubts passenger waiting at Lisbon airport , the company’s spokesman acknowledged the difficulty of “respond immediately” to all passengers waiting at the concierge desk at Portela. “There may have been a period in which the information was transmitted only later, when he was sent to a new time”, granted.

On Friday, the administration was surprised by the carrier that the membership of the pilots on strike have been higher in Portugalia, since the replacement seniority and compliance with the 1999 agreement, which gave the right riders to an equity stake in the company under the privatization are claims that, according to a spokesman for the carrier, do not apply to that.

Pires de Lima’s appeal
discord tone remained access in statements that the union on the one hand, and the Government and the administration on the other, made during the first day of downtime. The day before, the negotiations have lasted all night long, but the protest eventually stand. What drove the economy minister, António Pires de Lima, accusing the SPAC on Saturday to act radically and to reject back to the negotiating table. “There’s nothing to negotiate,” he said.

In the first ten days of strike, the report prepared by the Minister of Economy in the early evening of Saturday, was good news for those who have scheduled flights to the next day in the carrier: “Over 80% of the passengers were able to reach their destinations and 70% of scheduled flights were made [on Friday].” “There is no memory of a strike announced by the pilots’ union have this level of work,” he noted, before appealing to these professionals to “continue to work and increase the number of flights”, since the stoppage will last ten days.

“The riders who came to work on Friday did no favors to the Government,” also said the economy minister. “Turn work does not mean that support the government, or who are in favor of privatization – but who are genuinely concerned about the economy and the future of TAP”

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