Transportes Aereos Portugueses (TAP) Maintenance and Engineering in Brazil fired more than 500 workers on Friday (27), following the closure of activities in Rio de Janeiro.

The information was advanced by the President of the National Union of Air Workers, Luiz da Rocha Cardoso Pará, with presence in the 27 states of Brazil.

"Between 500 and 600 layoffs have been made, unfortunately," lamented the official, quoted by the Eco portal.

Cardoso Pará said that in Portugal feasibility studies were being conducted for the continuity of the maintenance sector, and after two months of talks with the workers "to our surprise [TAP] admitted that it would actually end maintenance in Rio de Janeiro.

"They [TAP] are already making the homologations of the layoffs in the union, there are more than 500 people (...) This had already happened in Porto Alegre, they had already closed the maintenance service there," added the union member.

According to the President of the National Air Workers Union, TAP decided to opt for layoffs due to lack of profitability. However, TAP had already come public in January 2022, anticipating these layoffs as part of the restructuring plan approved by Brussels in December 2021.

After an in-depth analysis and many studies, TAP has decided to close Maintenance & Engineering in Brazil and gradually close the operation in Brazil and we will discuss it with the workers, of course, who are the main priority, but we will also discuss it with our customers," TAP CEO Christine Ourmières-Widener announced at the time.

The target of several restructurings with layoffs, most recently in 2018, M&E Brasil received financial injections from TAP, overall, between 2010 and 2017, totaling €538 million in nominal values, with transfers of €30 million made in 2018.