(Bloomberg) -- Portugal said it wants TAP SA to keep its hub in Lisbon and routes that are strategic for the country, as the government plans a privatization of the state-owned airline.
“We will never give up the hub in Lisbon,” Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said at a conference in Mafra, Portugal on Friday. “If we don’t have guarantees that safeguard those routes, we will take the reins of managing the operation. That’s not what’s in the government’s program.”
The government in July reaffirmed its plans to privatize TAP, adding that the terms of the sale remain to be defined.
Air France-KLM, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and IAG SA, the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, have publicly stated their interest in TAP. The Lisbon-based airline’s biggest attraction lies in its links to Brazil, of which it’s the largest European provider. It also maintains a strong presence in Africa and operates a number of flights to North America.
Besides carrying tourists who have been visiting Portugal in greater numbers, TAP’s flights link a global diaspora of the country’s citizens and also connect the mainland to the Madeira and Azores archipelagos in the middle of the Atlantic.
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