TAP's Sale Enters Its Final Fortnight as Lufthansa and Air France-KLM Ready Binding Bids Due 29 July

The long-running effort to privatise TAP is entering its decisive stretch. The two airline groups still in the race — Germany's Lufthansa and the Franco-Dutch Air France-KLM — have until 29 July to lodge binding offers for a stake in Portugal's flag carrier, and their chief executives spent the past days in Lisbon for a final round of talks with management and, more recently, with the government itself before the clock runs out.

Two suitors, one seat

The field has already narrowed. International Airlines Group (IAG), the parent of British Airways and Iberia, walked away earlier in the process, leaving Lufthansa and Air France-KLM as the only contenders. Both are continental heavyweights with global networks — Lufthansa anchored in the Star Alliance and its Frankfurt and Munich hubs, Air France-KLM at the head of the SkyTeam grouping through Paris and Amsterdam — and each sees TAP's dominance on routes to Brazil and Portuguese-speaking Africa as the prize that would slot neatly into its map.

Crucially, the government of Luís Montenegro intends to keep control. The State will retain 50.1% of TAP, meaning whichever group wins buys influence and a commercial partnership rather than the airline outright. A slice of the company is also earmarked for employees. That structure frames the whole contest: the bidders are competing to become a strategic anchor shareholder, not a new owner free to do as it pleases.

Price becomes the tiebreaker

According to those close to the process, the two industrial projects on the table are broadly "equivalent" — similar promises on hubs, jobs, fleet and network. That similarity pushes the decision toward the one dimension where the offers can genuinely diverge: money. Miguel Pinto Luz, the Minister for Infrastructure steering the sale, has signalled that financial valuation will weigh heavily, and the government has been explicit that the return to the taxpayer is central after years of State bailouts kept the carrier flying.

Lufthansa has already moved to deepen its Portuguese footprint ahead of the deadline, with a declaration of intent to establish a pilot-training school in the country — the kind of commitment designed to signal long-term investment rather than a purely financial play.

What happens after 29 July

Once the sealed bids arrive, Parpública — the State holding company managing the shareholding — is expected to spend August analysing them before handing its assessment to the government. A decision on the winner is anticipated by the end of August or the start of September, closing a saga that has outlasted governments and false starts. For a carrier that has swung between near-collapse and recovery, the coming fortnight will determine which European giant it flies alongside for the next decade — and how much Portugal banks for handing over the keys to nearly half of it.