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Pilots strike to put TAP at risk, warns Portuguese PM

Xinhua, April 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho has condemned a strike planned by TAP pilots ahead of the flag carrier's privatization, claiming it will put the state-owned company at risk.

"The government made an agreement with TAP syndicates and it is not being respected. We profoundly lament that that is happening," Coelho said at a quarterly debate at parliament on Friday. "A strike would put the company at risk -- not in the long-term but in the short-term."

Pilots at Portuguese flag carrier TAP threatened to stage a 10-day strike from May 1 to May 10, in a meeting held by the Civil Aviation Pilots Syndicate on Wednesday night.

"It is perverse that a 10-day strike, in the name of saving the company to avoid it from being privatized, could put the actual company at risk," Coelho pointed out.

"The alternative to the privatization of TAP is collective dismissal, the reduction of activities, the sale of airplanes, the cancellation of routes. It would mean a miniature TAP which would no longer serve the country's interests. I don't know how that could be in the pilots' interest. It doesn't serve the interests of TAP employees or of Portugal," he added.

The strike in May could affect up to 350,000 passengers, according to TAP, and could lead to losses of up to 70 million euros (75.6 million U.S. dollars).

TAP is now in the process of selecting a bidder to sell off a 66 per cent stake of the company. The concession of TAP is part of the country's privatization program under the 78-billion-euro bailout program the country signed in 2011.

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