Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras (AD, Campinas Viracopos) has no interest in wanting to acquire TAP Portugal (TP, Lisbon), its owner, David Neeleman, has said. On Monday, the Valor Economico newspaper reported that Neeleman was in talks with Brazil's national development bank, BNDES, to arrange financing for a possible stake purchase. However, Mr Neeleman said Azul was more concerned with its own IPO bid due later this year and was prepared to help the Portuguese carrier with onward-connections but nothing further. The Portuguese government needs to sell TAP by the end of the year under the requirements of its bailout program.

Avianca Brasil (O6, Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont) is reportedly in the process of preparing a second bid for Portuguese national carrier TAP Portugal (TP, Lisbon) after a first bid had failed in December when the Portuguese government decided not to sell TAP to Avianca Brasil parent Synergy Aerospace. Synergy owner Gérman Efromovich has met with the Brazilian government to get support for a proposed second bid, this time by Avianca Brasil, according to aeroTELEGRAPH and Folha de São Paulo. Synergy Aerospace is the majority shareholder in Avianca-TACA and fully owns Avianca Brasil.

TAP Portugal (TP, Lisbon) is currently operating its six times weekly service from Lisbon to Brasilia with the risk of one of its A330-200s being impounded at Brasilia's airport. A regional court has issued a distress warrant against TAP because of unpaid debt by the government of Portugal. According to the court's ruling the 110 Brazilian employees of the Portuguese embassy in Brazil should have been paid in Brazilian real and not US dollars and have their exchange rate losses totalling approximately 3.8 million EUR reimbursed as the real has gained value over the last couple of years.

TAP Portugal (TP, Lisbon) will not be privatized this year after all as the Portuguese government has decided that it will not accept an offer made by Synergy Aerospace for the carrier. Synergy had emerged as the only bidder submitting a formal offer and had hoped to be able to use Lisbon as a hub for its flights to Europe offered by Avianca Colombia (AV, Bogotá) in whose holding company AviancaTaca Synergy owns a majority stake. The final offer from Synergy has reportedly not met the financial expectations of the government with just 35 million EUR being offered leading to its preference to not yet sell TAP at this point in time.

STP Airways (8F, São Tome) has now started using the single B737-800 CS-TQU (MSN 30646) of its parent euroAtlantic Airways (YU, Lisbon) on its weekly flight linking São Tome and Lisbon. It had previously used EuroAtlantic B767-300ERs on the route where it competes with another weekly service by TAP Portugal (TP, Lisbon).