Sale of Portuguese TAP ends large flag airlines in Europe

The beginning of the privatization of the Portuguese airline TAP ends with the large flag airlines of Europe, in a process of exit from the States of capital that began in the 1980s.

That step produced a consolidation movement that has given rise to three large groups: International Airlines Group (IAG), which incorporates British AirwaysIberia, Vueling, Air Lingus and level; The Dutch KLM and Air France make up another large conglomerate, and the alliance of the German Lufthansa with Brussels Airlines, SwissAir and Austrian Airlines.

All three have announced their interest in staying with TAP.

The most recent privatization of a European airline was that of Ita Airwaysborn from the liquidation of the old Alitalia and for which a partner has been sought for years. Lufthansa last May it acquired 41% of the transalpine company for 325 million euros. Thatcher and the first great privatization.

The first major privatization of a public airline was that of British Airways, owned by the British State since the mid-20th century, and put up for sale during Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government, which began the process in 1981.

Although the airline had good financial results, to the point of being one of the most profitable in the world in a period when state airlines were in decline, its privatization was completed in 1987.

The British gave way to a wave of airline privatizations in Europe that would continue until the beginning of the 21st century.

Lufthansa’s departure from the State began in 1994 and ended in 1997. The company then embarked on a purchasing process of other minor Central European airlines, such as Swissair, in 2007; Austrian Airlines, in 2008; and Brussels Airlines, in 2009.

The Government of France decided in 1997, led by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, to approve the partial privatization of Air France, which in 2004 merged with the Dutch state company KLM, a consortium in which the French State controls 28.6% of the capital and the Dutch, 9.3%.

In the Spanish case, Iberia was publicly owned until 2001, when its privatization process began and, subsequently, it joined the alliance IAG, with which it currently competes among the greats in the world. The Spanish Luis Gallego is the top executive of the British Hispanic group.

In the case of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the three countries share one airline, Scandinavian Airlines, a collaboration forged in 1951 that consolidated each country’s flag carriers into one.

Currently the group is mostly private, although the Swedish State retains 14.8% of the capital and the Danish State, 14.2%, while the Norwegian State chose to undo its participation.

Smaller airlines such as the Finnish Finnair, in which the State controls 55.9%, and the Estonian Nórdica, continue to be majority public capital, after their founding in 2015 once the previous flag company, Estonian Air, was declared bankrupt and liquidated.