Protesters gathered on Saturday morning in front of the 4 de Fevereiro International Airport, in Luanda, shouting slogans and displaying protest posters, including "give back our TAAG", "down with harmful management", "no more leasing foreign aircraft, "give us back our rights" or "out HiFly".
For the executive secretary of the Provincial Union of Cabin Navigators (SINPROPNC), who called the demonstration, the issue is the failure of the administration to comply with the workers' claims.
"We are here today because all possibilities for talking to the company have been exhausted", accused Ondina Costa, giving examples such as the lack of payment of the daily value for the crew of international flights.
The unionist stated that an email was sent to the board of directors regarding several issues and complained that the union had not been heard until today.
"This administration ignores us", she said, regretting that the company reacts only to public protests and using communications that should be addressed to workers and not to public opinion, which she considered a way of "disguising everything they have been doing".
She also underlined that the agreements signed with the company are only being partially fulfilled.
With regard to daily allowances, she indicated that the situation has worsened, as the crew members are not receiving advance payments.
"Many times the crew members arrive at their destination and do not have the money deposited on their cards", said Ondina Costa.
On Thursday, the administration of the air carrier TAAG made it known that, since the 1st of February, the new modality of making allowances available to cabin crew has been in force, via an advance on the "Visa Camba" credit card, assigned to the crew.
This change was intended to respond to complaints from seafaring personnel regarding delays in card loading and the impossibility of accessing card statements.
The unionist also contested that TAAG crew members are not being trained to work on HiFly planes, as had been promised.
"HIFly has been here for about a year and the TAAG crew should have already been trained to be able to operate these planes, so that we can move from a 'wet leasing' contract to 'dry leasing'", she complained.
Last year, Linhas Aéreas de Angola contracted an Airbus A330 aircraft from the Portuguese airline HiFly for the Luanda-Lisbon-Luanda connection, under a 'wet lease' regime, a type of contract that guarantees, in addition to the plane, the availability of the full crew, maintenance and insurance of the device.
Ondina Costa also stressed that the workers are not against the administration, but against its management, criticizing the lack of consultation with the workers.
She also admits to moving towards a strike and underlined that the workers will maintain the protests until they see their demands met.
SINPROPNC had planned to march to the TAAG headquarters, but was not authorized by the Provincial Government of Luanda (GPL), which claimed that the law only allows demonstrations to take place from 1 pm.
Ondina Costa regrets that the GPL's response was late and did not allow adjusting the time at which the march would take place.
