TAP boss confident privatisation will ‘ensure country’s interests’

The chief executive of TAP, Christine Ourmières-Widener, told Lusa on Tuesday that she was confident that the airline’s privatisation process “will guarantee all the country’s interests”.

In New York, to present the new advantages of the ‘Portugal Stopover’ programme to the US market, Christine Ourmières-Widener avoided answering Lusa’s questions about the privatisation process, referring to the government, as “the process will be managed by the company’s shareholders”, but said she was “sure that all of the country’s interests will be guaranteed”.

In relation to ‘Portugal Stopover’, she said that the North American market was very important for the airline and that this is growing, which will lead to an increase in flight frequencies next summer.

“It is a market we want to develop, and the connection between Portugal and the United States is very strong,” she said.

The event to present the new advantages of the ‘Portugal Stopover’ programme to several stakeholders took place on Tuesday at the Pestana Park Avenue hotel in downtown Manhattan and was also attended by the secretary of state for internationalisation, Bernardo Ivo Cruz, and the consul-general in New York, Luisa Pais Lowe.

“We are at a very good stage in attracting American investment to Portugal, we have a historically very good relationship with the United States (…), and this TAP programme gives us another mechanism to become even better known in the United States,” said Ivo Cruz.

“The idea was to show that, on the way to Europe, it’s worth stopping in Portugal, staying ten days, which is what the programme now offers. And even get to know more than one city (…) It is also very important to value the fact that the Portuguese communities or younger generations of Lusodescendants increasingly want to go to Portugal and get to know the land of their ancestors. Therefore, there is a new wave of tourists who are of Portuguese descent, and that is a market to be valued for TAP,” said Luisa Pais Lowe.

Launched in 2016, ‘Portugal Stopover’ has encouraged TAP passengers to visit Portugal when it is not their final destination.

From December 2022, the programme has increased the maximum number of possible ‘stopover’ days in Portugal from five to ten days.