Portugal’s audit authority (Inspeção-Geral de Finanças - IGF) has concluded that the privatisation of TAP Air Portugal (TP, Lisbon) in 2015, when Atlantic Gateway, a consortium owned by David Neeleman and Humberto Pedrosa, bought the state-owned carrier, might have been fraudulent, the television channel SIC Notícias reported.
The consortium acquired the airline while agreeing with Airbus to acquire 53 aircraft. According to the IGF audit, Atlantic Gateway and TAP entered into an agreement with Airbus, and the guarantee obliged the Portuguese carrier to buy the aircraft. “In other words [...] TAP was purchased with TAP’s own money but in a legal manner, using a scheme that allowed circumvention of the country’s commercial company code [Código das Sociedades Comerciais],” the channel reported.
In 2015, the consortium initiated a comprehensive fleet renewal of TAP by ordering 53 Airbus jets including A330-900N widebodies and A320-200N and A321-200N narrowbodies. In 2022, the country's public prosecution service launched an audit on the acquisition of the planes on the suspicion that the company's management paid more for them than its competitors.
The then-Portuguese prime and finance ministers, Pedro Passos Coelho and Maria Luís Albuquerque, assisted in formulating the strategy to privatise TAP Air Portugal, and the IGF concluded that the latest findings should be communicated to the country’s public prosecutor's office for investigation. However, the current prime minister of Portugal, Luís Montenegro, said the IGF’s audit did not make any new or important discoveries.
In 2023, Neeleman, founder of US carriers JetBlue Airways and Breeze Airways and Brazil’s Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras, wrote in an opinion article in the Portuguese newspaper Expresso that it was “completely absurd to say that TAP shares were bought with Airbus funds or with TAP’s future cash flows,” as has been alleged, adding that the carrier exclusively used funds from the deal to pay salaries and for its cash needs, Reuters reported.
Neither TAP Air Portugal nor David Neeleman were immediately available for comment.
Portugal bought David Neeleman’s stake in TAP in 2020. However, the current Portuguese government is eyeing a potential new privatisation with Air France-KLM, Lufthansa Group, and IAG International Airlines Group all reportedly interested in the carrier.
