Airport News
German airline Lufthansa should consider investing in TAP, Portugal's troubled state carrier which is to be sold, the indebted country's Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho was quoted saying in a newspaper.
"Lufthansa would be very well advised if it would develop the market in South America and Africa together with the Portuguese airline TAP," Coelho was quoted as saying in Friday's Handelsblatt newspaper.
"I could imagine that Lufthansa is following our privatisation programme attentively in which TAP, too, is being privatised. Surely that would be a good investment for a German company," he added.
A spokeswoman for Lufthansa declined to comment.
Air Portugal (TAP) and several other state companies are set for privatisation this year as part of Portugal's financial recovery plan.
Lufthansa rival International Airlines Group (IAG) has said it would be interested in TAP for its access to the Brazilian market.
A few years ago, Lufthansa flirted with Spanish carrier Iberia, which later merged with British Airways to form IAG, to gain access to the growing Latin American aviation market.
Lufthansa generates only about 2 percent of its traffic revenue in that region.
But instead, Lufthansa went on a shopping spree ending in 2009 that added Austrian Airlines, bmi and Brussels airlines to its stable, expanding its route network in Europe's competitive market.
The German flagship carrier's chief executive Christoph Franz earlier this week reiterated that Lufthansa will focus on organic growth for now.
