Portugal: pilots’ strike TAP e disrupts air traffic – Boursorama

Passengers waiting at the counters of TAP at Lisbon airport on May 1, 2015 (AFP / Patricia de Melo Moreira)

The strike by pilots of the national carrier TAP Portugal, which require the application of agreements for the privatization of the company, continued Saturday to disrupt air traffic for the second consecutive day.

A plane four remained grounded Saturday, said a spokeswoman for TAP AFP, before recalling that a minimum service possible to guarantee at least 10% of flights during the strike, which is to last ten days.

The drivers accuse the government and particularly their leadership to violate a company agreement schemes under which drivers between 10 and 20% of the capital in the event of privatization and have not returned seniority bonuses removed in 2011.

At the airport of Lisbon, several passengers complained that the TAP a lack of information. “We do not know until the last moment, when the drivers come if the flight will take place,” said a spokesman for the company.

The management of the TAP said that the movement will weigh on its finances to the tune of 70 million euros. According to the Hotel Association of Portugal, the strike could lose 300 million euros of revenue to the tourism sector.

Sign divisions between pilots and other employees of the company, several hundred TAP employees had on Wednesday called for the lifting of the strike during a silent march.

In search of private funds to bail TAP, the center-right government has decided to put on sale by the end of June 66% of the company, after a failed first attempt at privatization in December 2012.

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