Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on July 16, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleIAG plans to invest in TAP and expand its Lisbon hub if it wins a stake in the airline's privatisation, competing with Lufthansa and Air France-KLM.
By Sergio Goncalves
LISBON (Reuters) -British Airways owner IAG said on Wednesday it would invest in Portuguese flag carrier TAP and expand its main Lisbon hub if IAG won the race for a stake in TAP's partial privatisation.
Portugal relaunched the long-delayed privatisation of TAP last week, aiming to sell a 44.9% stake to an airline that could bring global scale and competitiveness, with an additional 5% to be offered to TAP employees.
IAG is one of three major European airline groups to have shown interest in the privatisation and has had meetings with the government over the past year. The two others are Lufthansa and Air France-KLM.
"IAG welcomes the ... privatisation process. We believe TAP would flourish as part of IAG’s distinctive and proven model - one that focuses on investing in airlines and expanding strategic hubs," a company spokesperson told Reuters.
TAP's most attractive assets are its connections to Brazil, Portuguese-speaking African countries, and the United States from its Lisbon hub, which the government wants to keep and expand.
One of the criticisms that some analysts make of the potential IAG bid is that the Lisbon hub is very close to the Madrid base of IAG-owned Spanish airline Iberia and, in the long term, IAG could divert routes from Lisbon to Madrid, reducing the importance of the hub in Portugal.
But the spokesperson said that Dublin-based Aer Lingus, which has been part of IAG since 2015, has doubled its long-haul capacity despite its closeness to British Airways' London hub, giving "a compelling example of what can be achieved" with TAP.
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves. Editing by Andrei Khalip and Mark Potter)
IAG plans to invest in TAP and expand its main hub in Lisbon if it secures a stake in the airline's partial privatisation.
Portugal aims to sell a 44.9% stake in TAP, with an additional 5% to be offered to employees.
Besides IAG, the other major European airline groups interested in TAP's privatisation are Lufthansa and Air France-KLM.
TAP's most attractive assets include its connections to Brazil, Portuguese-speaking African countries, and the United States from its Lisbon hub.
Analysts are concerned that the proximity of TAP's Lisbon hub to IAG-owned Iberia's Madrid base could lead to market overlap and competition issues.
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