The Slovenian president discovered that TAP still means “take another plane” …
Slovenian President Borut Pahor has revealed that the leading Portuguese airline TAP is not waiting for anyone – not even a VIP, who is transported across the runway all three minutes late.
The Portuguese state, meanwhile, paid 40,000 euros for this unusual timing lesson – an incident that, according to one newspaper, was actually caused by a VIP transport vehicle, not the unfortunate visiting president himself.
And TAP simply said that “at all stages of this process, rules and applicable law were applied and followed …”
The fact that it has cost thousands of taxpayers, embarrassed the government and the state, and shows that the TAP is less accommodating when the airline is being massively bailed out by public finances seems completely irrelevant.
So what happened? It was very early on Wednesday morning – in fact so early that all the calls of upset Slovenes to the ministerial offices to try to seek help in solving the problem went unanswered because no one came to the beginning of the day.
Mr Pahor and his commission checked in time for the TAP scheduled flight from Lisbon Airport to Zurich. There is no problem at all with this point.
Since they were VIPs, they were accepted into the VIP lounge and given the luxury of staying there until the rest of the plane boarded.
They were then followed by a VIP transport vehicle, which respectfully carried them across the asphalt, after which there was a three-minute delay in the timetables.
The plane was still immobilized, with brakes on the wheels, Correio da Manhã explains, but the pilot was “uncompromising”. He simply did not let the group govern.
This was followed by a delay in the departure of the plane, because the Slovenian luggage, which was loaded soon after the timely check-in, had to be removed. (Sources told CM that it would take much less time to allow the group to board the plane than it did to find and remove their luggage.)
Thus, to the list of ‘damages’ due to the intransigence of the pilot add ‘late arrival to Zurich’ for all other passengers on the flight.
While the unnamed pilot insisted that his orders “came from above” (no one can be sure how high he hinted), the result of this ridiculous situation was that an EU Member State presidential committee has been set up since this morning, perhaps earlier to leave it on the asphalt, and the official service is waiting back in Slovenia.
CM explains that the flight to Zurich was part of a trip home with two stops, where the Slovenian president is expected to receive a new ambassador to the United States.
As it was, a plan was drawn up to rent a private plane at Tires and return to Slovenia in one go, and ‘naturally’, since the Slovenian president was in Portugal at the invitation of President Marcel, the costs were covered by the Portuguese state ” .
No official source was seen this morning to discuss this latest mess, President Marcelo told reporters at the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs and State Protocol,” and the ministry has not said a word so far.