By Andrea Hargraves 
The aviation market is in turmoil and the fate of TAP, while the airline is embroiled in several crises on national territory, is being debated among the giants of the sector, with several bets on the table as to who will be the future owner of the company. .
At a press conference, Ryanair’s CEO had no doubts. “TAP will end up in the hands of British Airways IAG,” noted Michael O’Leary, who also predicted that Easyjet would also be bought by BA or Air France, “or even by both.” Winx will end up at Lufthansa.
However, the German giant is also eyeing the Portuguese company. German newspaper Handelsblatt reports that Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr mentioned at an internal company event that TAP was on the table, mainly because of ties with South America. However, the German company has just submitted a bid for a minority stake in ITA, the successor to the Italian state of Alitalia, and company sources have told Reuters that the deal could take months to finalize and, at the moment, is in Lufthansa’s focus.
As for the British agency, Alex Irving, an analyst at Barnstein, posits that after the deal is done, TAP may be the “next step.” Other companies that could be on the German radar are SAS of Sweden and even Easyjet.
Another competitor to the TAP purchase, Air France, appears to be, for the time being, out of the sector’s M&A market. “At the moment, our priority is to fully recover from the Covid-19 crisis and complete our transformation,” said an Air France KLM spokesperson.
The Portuguese government wants to proceed with the privatization of TAP later this year, with media indicating that the process could be completed in the first months of 2023. It is still unknown what percentage of the company will be sold, but there are those who defend close values. than 100%.
In his usual commentary on SIC, last Sunday, Luis Marques Mendes indicated that the recent scandals in which the Portuguese company was involved could affect the value of the deal.