Rui Moreira warns TAP that Porto will in no way call any truces

Mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira signs opinion article in the Jornal de Notícias newspaper to warn that the city of Porto does not accept that TAP is to become a regional airline with public money, once again. 

The article is titled "Sem tréguas" ["No truces"] and Rui Moreira recalls that the recovery of the main industrial region in the country cannot happen without air transport and that the two-speeds starting up will poison the country, no doubt.

Just before the pandemic, TAP strategy regarding the city of Porto appeared to be shifting, after the airliner had removed routes in 2015. The company is majority State owned although the main decisions are done at private level. Following the previous decision of services reduction from Porto Airport, the new administration intended to reverse this strategy and new routes were announced in 2019.

"No need to explain that we must have public air transport from Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport to reopen the economy. The region has a trade balance degree of coverage of 140% and companies that boost export in the country need air links to ensure business.

Moreover, tourism will be back", Rui Moreira states in the article of opinion, furthering that "the market will solve the problem in time, but the current situation demands that air transport need stimulus to kick off. This is the main reason why governments will have to grant airlines support to save them from bankruptcy and relaunch their operations".

On his "battle" with TAP, four years ago, Rui Moreira says that the company didn't win. "As we had predicted, there were other companies that took the opportunity and the increasing demand for the Northern Region and occupied the abandoned routes.Then, when Fernando Pinto, whose main vison was to concentrate operations in Lisbon to an obsessive degree rather than strategic, and the arrival of Antonoaldo Neves, fan of the "realpolitik", TAP resumed operations in Porto".