{"id":58892,"date":"2026-07-29T23:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T23:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/58892\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T23:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T23:26:08","slug":"air-france-klm-and-lufthansa-bid-for-portugals-tap-airline-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/58892\/","title":{"rendered":"Air France-KLM and Lufthansa bid for Portugal\u2019s TAP airline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" alt=\"\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"912\" height=\"570\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"html-img h-auto w-full\" style=\"color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/5aa0ebaf-tap-air-portugal-02042026.webp\"\/>TAP Air Portugal is one of the few remaining state-owned carriers in Europe, with around 7,700 employees and a fleet of around 100 Airbus aircraft. (EPA Images pic)<br \/>\nPARIS: Both Air France-KLM and Lufthansa said Wednesday they had submitted bids to acquire a controlling stake in TAP Air Portugal that is being re-privatised.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">The Portuguese government announced last September that it was seeking a major international airline to buy most of the 49.9% stake that it plans to sell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">The two airline groups had both submitted non-binding offers in April and had three months to submit binding offers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Air France-KLM said it was bidding for a 44.9 to 49.9% stake in the airline and pledged to \u00a0\u201cposition\u00a0Lisbon\u00a0as its\u00a0unique\u00a0southern European hub\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">The group stressed that the move would strengthen its position in the Americas and\u00a0Africa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Lufthansa did not say how much of a stake it hoped to acquire, but also emphasised making Lisbon a southern European hub.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">\u201cWe want to strengthen Portugal\u2019s national airline as part of the Lufthansa Group and as the leading airline for the South Atlantic, with Lisbon as a strategic hub,\u201d said Lufthansa, which also owns the Swiss, Austrian and ITA carriers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Neither group mentioned how much money they were offering for the stake in TAP.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Portuguese officials have indicated they hope to conclude the privatisation in late August or early September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">TAP, which was renationalised in 2020 to stem losses from the Covid-19 pandemic, is among the few remaining state-owned carriers in Europe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">The airline has around 7,700 employees and a fleet of around 100 Airbus planes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAP Air Portugal is one of the few remaining state-owned carriers in Europe, with around 7,700 employees and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13058],"tags":[739,327,36796,36802,6875,19445,36803,1983,36804,36805],"class_list":["post-58892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-air-france","tag-air-france","tag-air-france-klm","tag-airline-acquisition","tag-airline-privatisation","tag-aviation-industry","tag-european-airlines","tag-lisbon-hub","tag-lufthansa","tag-portugal-aviation","tag-tap-air"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}