Antonoaldo Neves reaches agreement with TAP

The CEO of airline TAP will officially stand down at the helm of the airline at the next board meeting after reaching an agreement over pay with the government.

The Brazilian management executive who was brought in by the airline’s former shareholder, Brazilian airline mogul David Neeleman, was dismissed ´live’ during a press conference in July when the Government reached an agreement to buy Neeleman’s shares in the company.
The official termination of the contract on agreement was announced an insider to the online news source ECO on Friday.
After some weeks of negotiations, the chief executive and TAP – the majority share of the airline is now in public hands – reached an agreement which takes into consideration the payment of salaries foreseen until the end of his term in December.
Antonoaldo’s initial demands were considerable, the executive wanting a similar generous deal to the one reached with his predecessor Fernando Pinto.
That agreement had been amicable and negotiated with David Neeleman. This time negotiations were made with the Minister of Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos.
Neves is said to have wanted an agreement which would have ended in April 2021, but has now accepted the Government’s conditions. This means he will receive salaries until December when his contract is up, which will give him around €200,000.
All that is left now is a formality where under the terms of the recision contract, Antonoaldo Neves will cease to be executive director when the administrative board officially votes in the new CEO who has already been earmarked for the job.
That person, who is expected to take over in a matter of days, is Ramiro Sequeira, who has been the COO of the company since 2018.
But Sequeira will only act as an interim CEO because Minister Pedro Nunes Santos is to contract a headhunting agency to hire a CEO on the international market.
Either way, regardless of the CEO, the candidate will have to actively follow Brussel’s restructuring plan for the airline which is the condition of getting a possible €1.2Bn government bailout, rather than a loan, to keep TAP in the air.