The new Spanish Administration of TAAG does not fail to show its flag and will only be held responsible for its catastrophic and criminal management one day, perhaps when one of the planes that are nothing more than a pile of scrap metal, rented for its weight in gold, crashes. And there’s more left…
HToday, March 19, the worst, fortunately, did not happen and more than 100 passengers were safe and sound following being removed from the interior of one of the scrap metal with wings, white, from the Portuguese company, HiFly, rented by TAAG, with registration number DT 651, due to failure of the left reactor, which was not working, even following several attempts.
“Half of the passengers were already inside the plane and we might feel the noise from the sheet metal and the heat” denounced Miguel António to Folha 8, certainly giving thanks to God that the damage had been detected while still on the ground.
The strange thing, according to another passenger, Maria José, is “not only the presence of the Minister of Transport, who was in Japan, already passing through Lisbon, as if he had come to collect the dividends, of this millionaire rental and killer of aircraft in worse conditions than the that our candongueiros (collective taxis, blue and white)”, he said adding; “If he had not participated in this corrupt robbery, he would have, at the time, because he was here at the airport, ended this criminal contract, which one day, not too far away, he and the President will have to account for. This is really the behavior of thieving mobsters”.
In reality, the Minister of Transport, Ricardo Abreu, was not in the protocol room, but in the great hall, surrounded by business friends and passengers in informal attire, and if there was a change in the mood of the passengers due to the constant failures of this company, he might be publicly derided .
“This gentleman, in addition to being incompetent, is a provocateur, as he feels comfortable with this incompetence of the Portuguese company of which he must be a partner, which sends our planes, newer and of superior quality, criminally, to the cemetery, taking the country losing millions of dollars every month. These gentlemen are of the worst criminal species”, denounced Alexandre Sivonde.
In reality, TAAG’s situation is quite critical and continuing with an incompetent Administration, which with the active help or passive connivance of the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, are squandering the assets, selling them at a bargain price, in addition to being deflect planes.
One plane is hidden in Israel, another was diverted to Cape Verde and, most likely, they will not be reintegrated into the public sphere.
Due to this outrageous incident, a passenger denounced the disastrous state of the national flag carrier: “The passengers were in the departure lounge without any explanation or information, not knowing if they are still traveling to Luanda today or not”, he said, adding:
“Our TAAG no longer changes and there are those who say that this white aircraft is the worst of the leased aircraft, with terrible technical problems, from the engines, air conditioning, seats, including the poor service provided by the crew on board. Elsewhere, the minister himself was already dismissed from the TAAG Board of Directors”.
More: “Angolan suffers even abroad, this can only be a plague! God help us only please! We no longer have anyone to ask for help, the Minister of Transport himself is witnessing this. The President of the Republic insists on working with a team that failed in the past five years and continues to fail in this new one. There are those who no longer want to travel on this aircraft out of fear. We should ask Ricardo de Abreu for an accounting, but he is here, so we ask his Excellency Mr President of the Republic, João Lourenço, our TAAG planes back, not least because they are newer than these old Airbus ”.
“Joint venture” between TAAG and TACV did not get off the ground
RIt should be remembered, even to assess the incompetence of the MPLA Executive, that a year following President João Lourenço announced the creation of a “Joint Venture” between TAAG and TACV, which would allow the Angolan company’s planes to use Cape Verde to connecting other cities in West Africa, Europe and the United States of America, nothing left the list of official propaganda.
Fernando Gil Évora, former manager of air transport, sees, in statements to VoA, the delay in the operation of the announced “joint venture”, due to the structuring process that TAAG and TACV are going through, but believes that the project has conditions to be viable.
In March last year, during his official visit to the archipelago, João Lourenço said that the resumption of TAAG flights would be coming soon, this following fine-tuning some details.
At the time, following meeting with the Prime Minister, Ulisses Correia e Silva, the Angolan head of state added that his Government wanted to take advantage of the passage of TAAG planes through Cape Verde to, “from here we operate to various capitals in the region West Africa and also to the United States of America”.
A year later, the former manager of TACV, Gil Évora, says that the delay is linked to the restructuring process that the two bells are going through.
“TAAG still did not have enough aircraft to include within that project that was announced by the Angolan Head of State and I believe that TACV was going through difficult times that did not allow it to enter headlong into the referred operation”, advanced Gil Évora, for whom the project has everything to succeed, taking into account the “capacity in terms of aircraft on the part of Angola and the network of Cape Verde”.
On the other hand, the commander and former operational administrator of TACV, Mário Socorro, who participated in the negotiations in 2017 with TAAG counterparts, says that both companies need to fine-tune their respective restructuring processes and functional organization, but considers that the project should implemented can bring benefits to both sides.
“If it really goes ahead, it will be a profitable operation for the two air carriers… it is important at this moment to see if TACV has all the renewed ETOP certifications… but it will not constitute a big problem because the staff has training and experience”, he adds.
Meanwhile, the president of the Sotavento Chamber of Commerce, Marcos Rodrigues, says that the suspension of flights from Angola has practically derailed any business initiative between the two countries.
“Suffice it to analyze that in the past when TAAG made the connection Luanda/São Tomé/Praia, some business dynamics was already being seen and also in the movement of goods”, recalls Marcos Rodrigues.
It should be noted that the Cape Verdean airline has resumed operations to Lisbon, using an aircraft from the Angolan company, under the wet leasing regime.
It should be remembered that last February, in a communiqué addressed to its members, the SINPROPNC (TAAG Cabin Navigator Provincial Union) had the following slogans: “Return our TAAG”, “Down with bad management” and “Out to HiFly”.
The union pointed out several problems, underlining that the claims presented to the company’s management, currently headed by the executive president, the Spaniard Eduardo Soria, were not resolved. “The truth is that things continue to go from bad to worse,” they say. At issue was the payment of daily allowances, discrimination in terms of payments, card management and the rental contract with HiFly.
“We cannot forget: TAAG is ours, it is an Angolan company and must serve Angola and the Angolans, and not foreign companies as is happening with HiFly (which, as a result of the agreement with TAAG, does not stop recruiting crew) and FLY.AO, which hired a company from Mongolia and which was subcontracted by TAAG, when we have local planes and crews”, contests the union.
Last year, Linhas Aéreas de Angola (TAAG) contracted an Airbus A330 aircraft from the Portuguese company HiFly for the Luanda-Lisbon-Luanda connection, under a ‘wet leasing’ regime, a type of contract that guarantees, in addition to the aircraft, the availability of the complete crew, maintenance and insurance of the device.
“This decision coincides precisely with the ongoing maintenance work that TAAG is carrying out on part of its international fleet, respectively the Boeing 777-300ER model”, according to a note released at the time by the company.
TAAG concluded, at the end of last year, agreements with all the unions – the Provincial Union of Cabin Navigators (SINPROPNC), the Union of Airline Pilots (SPLA) and the Union Bureau – which include the operationalization and implementation phase of the applicable remuneration components, which were not disclosed.
