"At this time, there are no redundancies in progress at TAAG. What TAAG and its management are doing is regularizing the processes of retirement and retirement of staff who have reached that legal age. This is not a dismissal process, but a simple regularization of the professional status of some people who are of retirement age", stressed the official, estimating that 100 of the 2500 employees of the carrier will be in this situation.
Last week, Novo Jornal reported an alleged plan by TAAG, currently managed by Spanish Eduardo Soria, to fire two hundred workers as part of the company's restructuring plan, whose partial privatization is also planned.
"We would be very bad if we were dependent on these people so that an airline the size of TAAG could suffer or have incalculable losses, we think that this is a natural process that has to happen", continued Ricardo Abreu, who was speaking to the press on the sidelines of the presentation of the project for the modernization of the air navigation system.
The official also pointed out that it is necessary to guarantee the emergence of a "new generation of professionals" to do "what is normal: some leave, others come in".
Asked about the approximation of TAAG to the Cape Verdean counterpart TACV, he said that the control of one company by another is not at stake, but rather a "strategic partnership", at the level of the two countries.
"It's a bilateral partnership and obviously the airlines are also able to observe the opportunities for business promotion. At this time, TACV is requesting TAAG's support and, for that reason, a leasing contract was signed for an aircraft that will be operated by TACV to destinations it deems commercially viable and with that we will strengthen relations and promote more traffic to Cape Verde and Angola", he underlined.
Ricardo Abreu also added that TAAG currently does not have any restrictions to fly to European countries and is "creating the conditions for the national civil aviation system to be certified to be able to operate to the United States".
TAAG, he continued, also started the restructuring of its cargo transport and "is crossing the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, from São Paulo to Hong Kong".
