"So, the government is concerned about this instability; it does not want instability at airports. Obviously, it cannot interfere in the tender, but it is very concerned and is monitoring the situation," the union leader stated. In addition to Sitava, the Handling, Aviation and Airport Workers' Union (STHAA) was present at the meeting.

In the preliminary report of the competition, which Lusa had access to, the jury led by Sofia Simões gave a rating of 95.2523 to the Clece/South group, from the Iberia group, and Menzies (formerly Groundforce) finished with a rating of 93.0526. At the meeting, the unions presented "a framework of Menzies's identification in 2022 for the insolvency administrators [of SPdH, or Groundforce] as the best investor" to capitalize the company.

"We provided a more historical overview of the last three or four years and then, naturally, explained our main concerns, and our main concerns involve the future of SPdH and its four thousand jobs," he emphasized.

According to Fernando Henriques, the union has "a set of commitments made to Menzies for 2026 regarding the future Company Agreement," namely, salary scales, that is, matters on which a commitment to negotiations was reached after the licenses were granted.

"In any scenario other than the licenses being granted to SPdH, this objective will be at risk and, therefore, will place enormous pressure on the part of workers, leading to labour and social instability," he explained. These licenses will be granted for a period of seven years, he noted.

The Sitava leader also questions what he considers to be a "basic lack of knowledge that is extremely worrying" on the part of the Clece/South consortium regarding labour issues. "When you don't understand the basic legislation of the sector, particularly regarding labour issues, it leaves us all hesitant," he said, noting that the unions have "great difficulty understanding" the results of the preliminary report.

This document, issued by the National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC), indicated that, in selecting the winner, one of the criteria involved submitting tables identifying the minimum number of material resources (NMM) and human resources (NMH) "to be allocated to baggage handling, cargo and mail handling, and runway operations assistance, per airport, for two theoretical scenarios."

And it was in this area, called a theoretical exercise with two scenarios per airport, that the Spanish consortium Clece/South scored better than Menzies, and in the other evaluation criteria—material resources and human resources—the scores were equal.