TAP contracts with Hi Fly to reduce flight delays and cancellations.

TAP assumes a “disruption” situation and says it has 40% of delayed flights that cause “consumption of additional resources” and “cancellations”. Delays that the company is in an internal letter signed by the executive committee to which Business had access – says “they come from air traffic control and maintenance” as they do “at other European airports”.

Without disclosing the number of delays and cancellations, in order to “mitigate problems” and try to stop delays and flight cancellations, TAP has taken eight measures to “quickly” improve operations.

According to the letter, which Negosios had access to, a contract was signed with Hi Fly under ACMI (aircraft leasing, including pilots, crew, maintenance and insurance) for a period of “one month” to operate “from Punta Cana (seasonal route), Warsaw and Vienna (additional cargo potential). Thus, according to TAP, “the plane will be released to compensate for delays and flight cancellations.”

In addition, the company is reducing flights to some destinations by “adjusting” capacity and “an additional sales blockade is underway to have room to accommodate passengers with canceled flights,” the document said.

There was also, according to the executive committee’s letter, “an intensification of the operation by 70 flight attendants through the end of the summer to cope with the peak of absenteeism and resource consumption by current disruptions.”

A rewards program for the efforts of operators will “be launched” for employees, and TAP says that “the entry into the ‘full-time’ mode of maintenance and engineering technicians is ‘under discussion’, which will ‘enable the operation to be strengthened’.

The document also states that NAV and the Portuguese Air Force are “implementing a protocol today to optimize the use of airspace and consequently reduce delays on the part of air traffic control.”

Finally, TAP notes that Groundforce, which is in the process of being sold, “has launched a contingency plan to retain and hire more workers and equipment.”

These are some of the measures developed by an internal working group that the company says are already in place to prevent flight delays and cancellations.

TAP also takes the opportunity to say that it is not the only company in Europe with a “high disruption rate”, noting that there are other companies and airports that are “even more affected”, with “cancellations two or three times higher than at TAP and Humberto Delgado Airport.”