TAP loses 70% of passengers in Porto on 2019

Both August and September were a disaster for national airline TAP in terms of passenger numbers flying to and from Porto.

Not only were there less passengers, down 70% overall from January to September on 2019, its low-cost competitors did better and picked up more passengers.
In Lisbon, the airline which between 2020-2021 has received €2Bn in State aid, has not been transporting even half of the passengers it carried in September 2019. The situation in Porto is even worse: TAP as lost 70.1% of its passengers compared to September 2019 and is on the point of being overtaken by low-cost Dutch airline Transavia.com
And to add to the airlines problems, which already faces having to sacrifice up to 20 peak time slots to other airlines such as Ryanair, economists have warned that the rejection of the State Budget 2022 TAP runs a serious risk of not getting any more cash from the Government.
In particular, a €1Bn payment to the airline and a €1.8Bn into the debt-ridden State railways company CP (Combios de Portugal).
“These capital injections need authorisation and the (Government) doesn’t have the conditions to make them. This will be put off until a State Budget can be agreed”, the economist Paulo Trigo Pereira told Jornal Económico.
However, the minister for Infrastructure and Housing said on Thursday last week that TAP’s revenues were “above those forecast in the document detailing company’s restructuring plan”.
Pedro Santos Nunes also said that the company’s recovery was “going well” but admitted that negotiations with the EU were “long and complicated”.
And as to the question of slots, the minister said, “We are negotiating the number of the slots to hand over” and added that the EU had forced Lufthansa and Air France to do the same.