After the end of the judicial recovery procedure that took place in the United States, known as Chapter 11, the Brazilian airline Azul states that the case it opened in the Portuguese courts against TAP is still ongoing and that the debt will continue to be collected.
“Our intention is to receive the money that is owed, which is due this year”, he responded to the DN/Dinheiro Vivo the company’s CEO, John Rodgerson, during a press conference this Monday, February 23.
At issue is the payment of a bond loan to the then TAP SGPS, now renamed Siavilo. At the time, Azul financed TAP SGPS, which was the holding company of TAP SA, with a value of 90 million euros with the acquisition of bonds convertible into shares. This contract is classified as a bond loan, with a series of guarantees given by TAP to ensure payment is met, with interest, within ten years.
“It is well known that TAP owes a lot of money to Azul. I think our partners, United, our new partner American, everyone knows that they owe us money”, added the CEO.
The reference is to the two American aviation giants, United Airlines and American Airlines, which entered Chapter 11 to support the Brazilian airline’s financial recovery, with the promise of injection of 200 million dollars into Azul(around 169 million euros).
More incisively, Azul’s institutional vice-president, Fábio Campos, told DN that debt collection from TAP “is a right” and refused any connection with financial restructuring.
“The big narrative that was put forward in Portugal when we entered Chapter 11 is that Azul started charging TAP simply because it needed the money, it was in a difficult financial situation. I think that now, coming out of judicial recovery, I tell you that we will continue to demand what is our right in the same way and with the same intensity. TAP had not been complying with the debt contract for some time”pointed out Fábio Campos.
The vice-president also recalled the history of the last two years, when Azul began to notify TAP of a series of contractual breaches. “In 2024, we started working, trying to talk to TAP so we could resolve our issue and this did not progress in the way we would like it to progress. Unfortunately, we obviously had to look for what is written in the contract”.
According to Fábio Campos, the defaults were certified “at a meeting of creditors”, which declared TAP in default. “After that, we took it to the Portuguese Court, in which we have full faith that it will continue to evaluate this process, because there really is a debt, there is a contract and that contract was not fulfilled.”
At the end of the loan term, next March, the value of the debt claimed by Azul with Siavilo will be R$178 million.
Fábio Campos did not provide details, “all these legal issues, I cannot comment much here”, but guaranteed that the process at the Lisbon District Court “It’s been going very well”.
In addition to the injection of 200 million dollars by the two North American companies, Azul concluded Chapter 11 with 850 million dollars (around 721 million euros) received in new investments in shares, with a reduction in debt and obligations of 2.5 billion dollars (2.12 billion euros) and a reduction of more than 50% in annual interest paid on loans and financing.
The Brazilian company also celebrated the fact that the process took just nine months, the fastest of its kind involving Brazilian airlines, and that it managed to achieve its operating targets for 2025, transporting 32 million passengers and maintaining its fleet.
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