"The scheduled TAP strike is serious and threatens the company in the short term," is the Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho’s considered view of the mess created by the angered TAP pilots union being fobbed off by TAP's management and its political overseers.
The PM added that not only is the problem at TAP "serious" but also that there is no alternative but to privatise the ailing carrier.
"Failure to privatise TAP will lead to collective redundancies, the sale of aircraft, restructuring, a mini-TAP that does not serve the interests of workers, pilots, or Portugal," said Passos Coelho in parliament this morning.
The strike called by the TAP pilots for between May 1st and May 10th he sees as perverse as the reason given for the strike is to save the company by halting the privatisation process.
This, in the PM’s view, “could jeopardise the company itself not in the medium-term, but in the short term," in response to a partisan question from parliamentary leader of the CDS Nuno Magalhães, who called on the pilots to call off the strike.
Magalhães then warned of the consequences of the pilots’ strike, should it go ahead as planned, saying there would be damage to “the Portuguese economy, to passengers, and also, and perhaps above all, to the company itself."
The parliamentary leader of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, said the strike would be "selfish" and "deeply irresponsible" which was a deeply irresponsible thing to say at this delicate stage.
The stance adopted by the government clearly is meant to be as confrontational as the pilots' proposed strike action, but it is not alone as the Association for Hotels and Restaurants in Portugal said today that it condemns the irresponsibility of the TAP pilots whose strike, it claims, is designed to paralyse the country.
The association said the damage to tourism and the national economy will be incalculable, adding that already hotel reservations are being cancelled due to the strike announcement.
Negotiations continue in the hope of finding some common ground but these will not be helped by the head of the government threatening to sell off aircraft and downsize the airline.
If downsizing is the best economic plan for TAP, then Passos Coelho must not be surprised if a new owner takes this course of action.
Meanwhile the value of the bids being worked on by bidders for TAP can safely be assumed to be reducing daily.
