Atlantic Gateway, the company set up by Humberto Pedrosa and David Neeleman to mount a (successful) bid for TAP, stated today that the newly announced directors for the State’s six boardroom seats, will be able to contribute to the airline’s development.
Atlantic Gateway claims to be "certain" that the new board of directors of TAP, to be confirmed on December 30th, will have "the necessary skills" and clarified that it’s up to the Gateway consortium to appoint the company's executive management.
"We are confident that this new board will have the necessary skills and will rise to the challenges ahead, given the business experience and complementary skills of its members," Atlantic Gateway said in a statement issued today in the face of increasing criticism that the new board members, bar one, have no airline experience and that one is a close personal friend of the prime minister.
Atlantic Gateway "will continue to appoint the executive management of TAP, which is now a privatised and private company," and intends to "maintain the pace of transformation of the company that is underway: this is the only way to ensure its sustainability and growth."
TAP's turnaround plan, which the consortium has been implementing since the privatisation of the company was completed, involves growth, which already has been achieved with new routes and with new airplane purchases in the pipeline.
Both opposition parties and those parties supporting the socialist government, the Communists and the Left Bloc, have contested the names of the new board members announced by the Government, especially the choice of the former Socialist Secretary of State, the lawyer Diogo Lacerda Machado.
On Sunday, it was revealed that Esmeralda Dourado from the car industry, Bernardo Trindade who was a Secretary of State for Tourism, and António Gomes de Menezes who is a former president of SATA airlines, will become non-executive directors on the TAP board, representing taxpayers’ interests.
Then there’s Miguel Frasquilho, a former president of a government investment agency (Agência para o Investimento e Comércio Externo de Portugal) who will be the new Chairman of the Board of Directors, Ana Pinho, chairman of the Serralves Foundation cultural body, and the lawyer Diogo Lacerda Machado who is a close friend of the Prime Minister and who helped the PM regain public control of TAP after the Socialist Party was elected.
Prime Minister António Costa said that the decision to appoint State representatives to TAP's Board of Directors "has been taken" and that "there is no controversy at all."
The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said that there should be a better way of appointing directors to businesses that the State has an interest in, suggesting that appointments should be discussed with MPs before simply being announced.
The last thing Humberto Pedrosa and David Neeleman need is a board that has a point of view that differs to their own. The current proposed board of directors for Jan 1st, 2018 appears to be suitably malleable, with the exception of wild card, Diogo Lacerda Machado, whose intellect and skills are widely recognised as superior.
