“If privatisation hadn’t taken place, TAP would have ended”

As the state prepares to increase its stake in TAP, with the departure of David Neeleman, Miguel Frasquilho praises the process that led to the privatisation of the Portuguese airline in 2015. In an interview with Radio Observador, Frasquilho said that “if privatisation hadn’t taken place, TAP would have ended.”

“If privatisation hadn’t taken place, TAP would have ended. There was not even liquidity for wages the following month. Therefore, the arrival of private shareholders David Neeleman and Humberto Pedrosa was essential to provide the funds that TAP needed to survive,” says Frasquilho, pointing out that the company needed these shareholders at the time so that “it could modernize, to expand.”

Now, with the company needing a “check” for 1,200 million euros, the state will control 72.5% of the capital, with one of TAP’s shareholders, Neeleman, leaving. “David Neeleman will no longer be a shareholder of TAP, but he was not only important at this time in the company, but he was also important, for example, in our business expansion in the U.S. last year,” says Frasquilho, adding that the American entrepreneur is a “visionary of aviation.”