Portugal's national airline, TAP, achieved its highest ever net profit last year, at €177.3 million, while revenues exceeded €4 billion for the first time, the company announced.
In a statement released early on Wednesday, the carrier said that the profit represents a strong increase on the previous year, when net profit had totalled €65.3 million.
Even so, the year-on-year profits were pinched by the negative performance of the last three months of 2023, which saw a loss of 26.2 million euros, after the record positive result up to September of 203.5 million euros. The increase in employee costs and traffic operating costs justify the red accounts.
Quoted in the statement, the company's CEO, LuÃs Rodrigues, said that "the good results for 2023 confirm TAP's path to recovery in recent years."
Portugal's prime minister-designate, LuÃs Montenegro of the centre-right Social Democratic Party (PSD), has indicated that he favours the privatisation of TAP, which was already being considered for a sale of its shares to investors by the outgoing, Socialist government.