“(…) The pilots of TAP SA, with a full sense of
responsibility towards taxpayers and passengers, despite being forced to
finance a Restructuring Plan wrongly imposed on the company that is responsible
for the overwhelming majority of the revenue of the TAP group, resolved in the
Assembly of Company, approved by 92% of the approximately 700 pilots who
participated, not to go on strike, because they do not want to agree with the
already demonstrated intention of using them as a scapegoat for the failures in
the company's recovery plan", said the Union of Civil Aviation Pilots
(SPAC).
SPAC recalled that the pilots “signed a Temporary Emergency
Agreement (ATE), in force since March 2021, to protect jobs when there was no
operation, demonstrating their full availability to make the company viable”.
“Still, TAP SA pilots were subject to collective dismissal,
despite the 50% pay cut they were subjected to, while the remaining TAP group
workers were only subjected to a 25% cut”.
According to the SPAC, TAP “does not comply with the ATE”
and “assigns assistance periods to pilots within the limit of the monthly
flight hours ceilings”.
Also, according to the union, the airline “disrespects the
time off regime provided for in the Company Agreement” and “repeatedly
disrespects clauses regulating the distribution of work”.
TAP “intends to unilaterally amend the ATE signed in good
faith between the pilots and the company and, recently, it does not even comply
with the Law in a Rule of Law, prohibiting pilots from meeting in plenary”,
added the SPAC.