Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on April 2, 2026
3 min readLast updated: April 2, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleAir France‑KLM has submitted a non‑binding offer to acquire up to a 44.9% minority stake in TAP Air Portugal as Lisbon progresses with its plan to privatize the airline, where IAG and Lufthansa are also confirmed contenders, and Portugal aims to finalize the process by mid‑2026.
By Sergio Goncalves and Gianluca Lo Nostro
PARIS/LISBON April 2 (Reuters) - Air France-KLM has submitted a non-binding offer to buy a minority stake in TAP Air Portugal, the Franco-Dutch airline group said on Thursday, as the Portuguese government moves forward with plans to privatise its flag carrier.
Portugal re-launched the long-delayed privatisation of TAP in July, aiming to sell a 44.9% stake to a strategic airline partner able to expand the carrier's global reach and competitiveness, with a further 5% earmarked for TAP employees.
Air France-KLM is the first among three European airline groups, which have expressed interest in participating in the airline's privatisation, to officially bid for a stake in TAP. British Airways-owner IAG and Germany's Lufthansa have also shown their interest in the Portuguese airline.
"Our ambition is to strengthen the operations at Lisbon while developing connectivity in other cities across the country including Porto. We look forward to the next steps of the privatization process," Air France-KLM CEO Benjamin Smith said in a statement.
TAP's key appeal lies in its prime and lucrative slots connecting its Lisbon hub with Brazil, Portuguese-speaking African countries and the United States, routes the government intends to preserve and expand.
"TAP is a natural fit within Air France-KLM's multi-hub strategy," Smith said, as Lisbon would become the group's sole southern European hub, offering extensive connections with the Americas and Africa.
Under the privatisation decree, the government may later sell its remaining 50.1% to the buyer of the minority stake now on offer.
With a fleet of 99 aircraft, TAP carried 16.9 million passengers in 2025, up 3.4% from a year earlier.
In the first nine months of 2025, TAP's profit dropped 35.2% to 55.2 million euros, despite a 0.5% rise in revenue to around 3.3 billion euros.
The next step is for the state holding company Parpublica, which handles the bidding, to prepare within 30 days a report on each proposal's merits for the government, after which it will select the most suitable non-binding offers and invite those bidders to submit binding proposals within 90 days.
The privatisation is expected to conclude in the second half of 2026.
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves and Gianluca Lo Nostro; Editing by Louise Heavens, Milla Nissi-Prussak and Tomasz Janowski)
Air France-KLM has submitted a non-binding offer to acquire a minority stake in TAP Air Portugal.
The Portuguese government is looking to privatize up to 49.9% of TAP Air Portugal's shares.
British Airways-owner IAG and Germany's Lufthansa have also shown interest in participating.
Air France-KLM aims to strengthen operations in Lisbon and develop connectivity in other cities like Porto.
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