The two sides have been locked in talks in recent weeks on the subject of how to sort out the situation left by the previous right-of-centre government, which pressed ahead with the privatisation even after it had been brought down in parliament.
Speaking to parliament’s select committee for economy, innovation and public works, the minister said that “the state sees as important the presence of a private partner that can contribute to the capitalisation and management of the company” and said he could see “the possibility of sharing management with the consortium, as has happened in recent years, in which the state did not interfere in the management” of TAP even when it was fully state owned.
Last week, David Neeleman, the Brazilian-American entrepreneur who with his local partner Humberto Pedrosa owns Gateway, said that in TAP “the management is the most important thing” and played down the question of ownership.
“If you can take decisions, that’s the most important thing,” Neeleman said. He added that government officials with whom he had been having talks “have said that they’re happy with what we’ve brought to TAP.”
In related news, the Oporto Trade Association (ACP) this week condemned the suspension by TAP of four routes from the country’s second city to Barcelona, Milan, Brussels and Rome, saying it was “regrettable” and “highly prejudicial for the companies and the economy of the north”.
“Once again we see we cannot rely on the wrongly named TAP Portugal. It is becoming more and more TAP Lisboa and less TAP Portugal”, said the association’s president, Nuno Botelho, in a statement.
The ACP said that in Oporto “the airlines that help the region’s economic and tourist growth” are now companies such as “Ryanair, easyJet and flag carriers like Lufthansa or Turkish Airlines”.
TAP announced on Monday that it would be suspending four routes from Oporto after Easter and five from Lisbon to Gothenburg (Sweden), Hannover (Germany), Zagreb (Croatia), Budapest (Hungary) and Bucharest (Romania), which it classified as “loss-making routes”.
Last week, part-owner David Neeleman promised to announce new TAP destinations to the US.
The Portuguese carrier TAP has also revealed it will suspend flights to Bogota, Colombia, City of Panama, Panama and Manaus, Brazil due to their continued loss-making returns.
TAP confirmed a report released on Sunday by the Presstur website detailing that the Lisbon-Bogota-Panama-Lisbon route would be suspended alongside the Lisbon-Manaus-Belem-Lisbon route and that would instead be served by the Azul carrier owned by David Neeleman, now a key post-privatisation shareholder in TAP.
The routes cancelled experienced a troubled start in the summer of 2014, with many cancellations. With the routes having failed to generate more demand in the meantime with the Bogota service requiring re-fuelling in Panama City that only served to raise the costs incurred, the TAP source said.
Furthermore, TAP would continue to fly to Belém halting only the connection with Manaus with the Amazonia located city instead served by Azul.
TAP President, Fernando Pinto, is on record as explaining how the carrier’s current strategy focused more on boosting the frequency of flights rather than the number of destinations and thus ensuring passenger certainty for the service provided.
TAP in the meantime is set to boost flight connections between Lisbon and Oporto from this March onwards with hourly flights during peak periods.
According to Jornal de Notícias, the cost of this connection has been priced to compete with the high speed rail link between the country’s two biggest cities.
The flight, which will take around 30 minutes as opposed to the 2 and half hour train ride, will be done with new planes and is the result of a deal with airport authorities to facilitate the check-in and boarding of this domestic route.
TAP has also announced that it is to press ahead with the full renewal and expansion of the fleet of its subsidiary Portugália, for a total investment of €400 million.
Portugália currently has 16 regional jets.
TAP’s new controlling shareholder had already announced the order of 53 wide-bodied Airbus aircraft.