TAP wants to restart dividends to state in 2025
The TAP chairman, Manuel Beja, pointed out that the payment of dividends was the "most direct way of reimbursing the state".
The chairman of the TAP board, Manuel Beja, said on Tuesday that the airline plans to start paying dividends to the state, its sole shareholder, in 2025, as soon as possible as it starts making profits.
“The forecast is that in 2025 we will start paying dividends from the moment we start having positive net results,” said the airline’s chairman, who was being heard in the Portuguese parliament by the economy, public works, planning and housing commission, at the request of the PS (Socialist Party).
Beja was responding to PSD deputy Paulo Rios de Oliveira, who asked the airline’s chairman when he plans to reimburse the state for the €3.2 billion of aid, which includes funds to deal with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The TAP chairman pointed out that the payment of dividends was the “most direct way of reimbursing the state”.
Also this afternoon, the chief executive officer (CEO), Christine Ourmières-Widener, said that TAP wanted to pay the Portuguese “as quickly as possible”.
Asked about divestment in Porto, the Algarve and the islands, Beja stressed that “a route cannot be analysed in isolation” and that long-haul flights are more profitable than medium-haul flights.
He also noted the constraints at Lisbon airport, which was “crucial to the quality of service” of TAP and said he hoped that the decision on the new airport “would be taken and implemented as soon as possible.
