TAP closes maintenance business in Brazil, over 500 laid off
The president of the Brazilian union of airline workers announced that TAP closed its aircraft maintenance operations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last Friday.
TAP closed its aircraft maintenance operations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Friday, laying off over 500 workers, the president of the Brazilian union of airline workers confirmed to Lusa.
According to Luiz da Rocha Cardoso Pará, leader of the union, which operates in all 27 states in the South American country, last Friday, “TAP’s maintenance, TAP Manutenção e Engenharia (TAP M&E), was closed down in Rio de Janeiro, with more than 500 redundancies.”
“Between 500 and 600 redundancies were made, unfortunately. The company was seeing in Portugal whether or not it would continue [with maintenance in Brazil], if it was necessary and, to our surprise, after more than two months talking to the workers, TAP conceded that it would end maintenance in Rio de Janeiro,” Pará said.
“TAP are already making the approval of the layoffs at the union, there are more than 500 people. This had already happened in Porto Alegre, they had already terminated the maintenance service there,” he added.
According to the union representative, the reason given by the company to close maintenance activities in Brazil was lack of profitability.
Lusa questioned TAP on the issue on Monday but has so far received no response.
The TAP Group announced in January that it had decided to close its maintenance and engineering operations in Brazil, as part of the restructuring plan approved by Brussels in December.
“After an in-depth analysis and many studies, TAP has decided to close Maintenance & Engineering in Brazil and gradually close the operation in Brazil and we will discuss with the workers, of course, who are the main priority, but also discuss with our customers,” TAP’s CEO Christine Ourmières-Widener announced to Lusa at the time.
The European Commission said on 21 December that it had approved TAP’s restructuring plan and state aid of 2.55 billion euros, but imposed conditions, including the separation of non-essential assets, namely the maintenance business in Brazil, and the ‘catering’ (Cateringpor) and ‘handling’ (Groundforce).
The target of several restructurings with redundancies, the last of which in 2018, M&E Brasil received financial injections totalling €538 million from TAP between 2010 and 2017, with transfers of €30 million made in 2018.
