TAP - comment

Speculation about Lufthansa taking a strategic stake in TAP are not ending. This is of course very much in line with our view of the situation, but has only yesterday been brought up again by Warwick Brady, CEO of Swissport, who have bought 50.1% of GroundForce, the Portuguese stand-alone handling business. TAP still holds the remainder. Given the lack of profitability in the business and the fact that the license agreement needs to be renewed shortly, this transaction won’t have resulted in much cashflows to TAP (any?), but should allow TAP to pass on savings in the future and to outsource more services to Swissport.