Brazil travel ban will have “strong impact” on TAP
After the United Kingdom, Portugal has also suspended all flights to and from Brazil because of Covid-19.
TAP suffered another hit because of the new coronavirus. At a time of few trips, and after a travel ban between Portugal and the United Kingdom, the government’s decision to suspend flights to and from Brazil will have a “strong impact” on the Portuguese airline, which has 26 weekly flights to that destination.
“Brazil’s routes and their connections represent an important volume of revenue for TAP,” the company says. In this sense, “this suspension of flights to and from Brazil will have a strong impact on the company, postponing the recovery,” TAP told ECO.
“Until February 14, all flights, commercial or private, of all airlines to and from Brazil are suspended. The rules now laid down also apply to flights to and from the UK,” the Home Office (MAI) said in a statement.
The government justifies this suspension of flights to and from Brazil with the evolution of the epidemiological situation worldwide, the increase in cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Portugal and the detection of new strains of the virus.
TAP, which says it “complies with all the restrictions and recommendations defined by the various authorities,” will have to land the aircraft that had Brazil as their destination. And there are several. “Currently, TAP is operating 26 round-trip flights a week between Lisbon and Porto and Brazil, to eight different destinations,” the company said.
TAP, which is undergoing a restructuring process involving the departure of workers and the sale of aircraft, among other measures, is still being punished by the pandemic in 2021, after having suffered a severe blow last year. The Portuguese airline made 91,000 fewer flights in 2020 than the previous year. And it carried 13 million fewer passengers.
