TAP announces plan to reduce previously scheduled salary cuts

The CEO of Portugal’s national airline, TAP, said on Tuesday that the company is this month to apply reductions to previously planned salary cuts for pilots and other workers.

Christine Ourmières-Widener was speaking at the company’s headquarters in Lisbon, where she had called in journalists for a briefing at a time when negotiations are underway with trade unions representing TAP employees.

On Sunday, TAP announced that it would reduce the planned cut in pilots’ salaries to 35% from the previous 45%, as well as raising the threshold at which it would apply pay cuts to other workers, to €1,410 from €1,330.

The cuts are part of the restructuring process negotiated with the European Commission as a condition for receiving state aid to help make the company viable again after the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The application of this minimum guarantee means that the effective cuts are not 25 percent, but vary on average between 12 and 15 percent,” the company said in the letter, referring to lower-paid employees.

In a communication to workers that Lusa has seen, TAP said that it would adjust the threshold for salary cuts in June and that this update would be retroactive to January of this year, so ensuring that anyone earning twice the statutory minimum salary would not face a reduction.

“These changes and retroactive update will both be made with the June 2022 salary,” the note reads.

It adds that “regarding pilots, the 10% reduction in the additional cut is planned from 1 June 2022 and will be implemented in this month’s salary.”