TAP renews car fleet with BMWs

Portugal’s airline TAP has decided to renew its fleet of cars by leasing top-of-the-range BMWs with a showroom cost of between €52,000 and €65,000.

The airline has justified its decision to rent the new fleet of cars for its top brass and other uses by saying it will enable savings of €630,000 a year.
It also says that the decision to renew the fleet was factored in at the same time as it has been meeting its current contracts.
“The Executive Commission would like to make clear that TAP has a corporate car fleet for the board of directors in a regime of operational renting.
With the option we have made we are saving €630,000 a year we would have spent had we kept the cars we currently have”, states TAP in an internal communiqué which was sent to Lusa.
According to TVI/CNN Portugal and the portal Away, TAP ordered a new fleet of corporate BMWs to replace the Peugeot cars it currently has. The new cars sell on the market for between €52,000 and €65,000.
TAP says that most of its current fleet dates from 2017 and will have achieved the maximum number of times it can be rented before replacement by next year.
“Since there was no other option other than drawing up new contracts, it has opted for hybrid plug-in vehicles instead of the current diesel cars, for environmental reasons, but also for the tax benefits associated with these vehicles because they are less polluting”, states the Executive Commission led by Christine Ourmières-Widener.
However, despite the perceived savings from the fleet update, the President of the Portuguese Republic questioned whether the new contract was a good idea by saying the airline was displaying “a lack of common sense” at a time when the Portuguese were “going through difficulties” and that TAP should have “led by example”.