TACV Cabo Verde Airlines’ sales director, Euriza Carrilho, held a press conference yesterday on Sal to clarify the reasons for the successive delays in the flights operated by Cape Verde’s flagship airline. “Pilot illnesses reported at the last minute” appear to be the origin of these “anomalies,” which have “caused the company serious losses.” The latest example of this was a Sal-Fortaleza flight, which, at the time of the press conference, was already 27 hours late, with 252 passengers waiting at Sal’s Amílcar Cabral International Airport.

According to Euriza Carrilho, approximately 63% of TACV’s last 371 flights departed late. The most critical case is that of the Sal-Fortaleza flight. “The company’s directorship believed that it had an obligation to publicly clarify the real reasons behind the delays,” she said, specifying that “pilot illnesses reported at the last minute” are the main motive.

Regarding the open letter from TACV’s employees published last week in Cape Verde’s media, Carrilho said she was “unaware of the dissatisfaction of [TACV’s] workers, who should enumerate their facts face to face without hiding behind the mask of anonymity.” “We should be frontal, and those who work in aviation know that the numbers presented in the letter are exaggerated,” she affirmed.

The AGT-VR, TACV’s newest workers’ association, said that it had not signed the open letter or the letter sent to the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and the President of the National Assembly. The association’s president, Aniceto Fonseca, did say, however, express his solidarity with the other associations that did sign it.

Fonseca pointed out, first of all, that greater “objectivity” was needed when proceeding with layoffs, which were carried out based on “friendships, in detriment of professionalism.” “There was also a lack of objectivity in the definition of new flight paths, demonstrated by the discontinuation of the flight to London,” he added.

Source: A Semana