THE TAP will launch 11 new routes in 2017, of which seven are in Europe, three in Africa and one in North America, announced this Tuesday the chief executive officer, Fernando Pinto. The manager also believes that the company will close the year with better results than last year.
in A meeting with the workers at the headquarters of the TAP, in Lisbon, with the aim of making known the plans for the future of the carrier, Fernando Pinto explained that the launch of the new routes, which should happen in principle in the Summer”, is part of the growth strategy of the carrier is privatised. Admitting that among the new destinations in Europe are cities where the company already flew in the past, the manager declined, for reasons of "competition", to reveal which routes.
In the next year, TAP also intends to reinforce the operation in the autonomous regions, in Porto, Lisbon and Faro, “due to the growth of tourism in Portugal”. Fernando Pinto said the intention of re-launching routes in Brazil, which had a reduction of the frequencies is motivated by political and economic instability of that which is the main market of the TAP, which was also very much affected by the devaluation of the real.
According to Fernando Pinto, this reinforcement of the TAP is only possible thanks to the investment in the fleet through the renewal of the interiors of 48 aircraft, budgeted at 70 million euros, and in the acquisition of planes.
The third pillar for the growth of the firm is based in the greater segmentation of the tariffs, offering “products for all who want to travel with the TAP”, in order to compete with the low-cost carriers (budget).
Fernando Pinto took the view that it is inevitable to compare the costs of TAP with these companies, however warned: “we Have to get closer, but we don’t want to be a company budget (…) our niche is different, but we have to have conditions to compete,” he added.
About financial data, the president announced that the airline will be able to save this year to 220 million euros due to the fall in the price of fuel, which will allow an improvement of the results compared to 2015, but not with a difference in net as large as the savings with the fuel.
THE TAP closed 2015 with a loss of 99 million euros compared with 46 million euros in 2014, compounded by the retention 91.4 million euros in Venezuela. Without this factor the extraordinary, then explained the company, “the result would have been only 7.6 million euros, showing a clear recovery compared to 2014″. Already in the last year, the reduction in the price of fuel had an impact of minus € 138 million in expenses.
The process of privatization of TAP is in progress, with the agreement of purchase and sale of shares of the carrier was signed by the Government of António Costa, and that allows the State to stay with 50% of the shares of the company, after having already received the green light from the Competition Authority, still missing the restructuring of the debt with the bank and approval by the supervisor of aviation (ANAC).
in This model, the consortium Atlantic Gateway, Humberto Pedrosa and David Neeleman, is with 45%, and may reach up to 50% with the purchase of 5% of the share capital that will be however placed to the disposal of the workers.
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