“The fact that 2018 wasa challenging, difficult year – in which we could also learn a lot – it was a year that did not jeopardise the pursuit of the strategic plan that is set for TAP. That is, what I want to express is that 2019 will be – these are the expectations that we have and that is what the budget points out – that 2019 can return to a year of positive results for the TAP group,” said Frasquilho in an interview with Lusa.

When asked about the activity in the first three months of 2019, Frasquilho began by recalling that the activity in the air sector is quite seasonal, with the first quarter being traditionally “weaker than the second and the third” and then “the fourth is weaker.”

As for whether the performance was worse than in 2018, Frasquilho pointed out the continued constraints felt in the fourth quarter of last year.

TAP saw a loss of €118 million in 2018, compared to profits of €21.2 million in 2017, as announced on 22 March.

TAP’s revenues rose from €2.978 billion in 2017 to €3.251 billion in 2018, translating into an increase of €273 million, but regarding revenues of Brazil, TAP's CEO, Antonoaldo Neves, said at the time of the accounts’ presentation, that it “fell 10%” and that “for the first time, in the fourth quarter, [the Brazilian market] had fewer sales in 2018 than in 2017.”

On the 2018 balance sheet, Frasquilho said that the strategic plan was defined when TAP privatisation “has been carried out” and that “expectations were – and continue to be – that the results are positive each year.”

This did not happen in 2018, but Frasquilho recalled that it was a period of exception.

TAP continues to renew and expand its fleet and to hire staff, including flight attendants, pilots, engineers, "a lot of skilled employment," he stressed.

Contributing this year also is that "the first in terms of results will not have the negative impact on the accounts resulting from TAP's maintenance and engineering operation in Brazil [ex VEM]" and that the North American market returns to contribute positively.

In 2018, the Brazilian market “was partially compensated by the dynamism and strength that the market has shown, which is already the third in terms of revenue for TAP, which is the North American” and to which TAP has “great expectations” with the opening of three new routes in Junes, in Washington DC, Chicago and San Francisco.

Frasquilho said that while the works that are needed at the Lisbon airport, TAP will “always have constraints that in the periods of higher traffic will have a negative impact on the operation.”