Portugal’s sale of a large minority stake in TAP Air Portugal has reached its final stage. Parpública, the state holding company running the process, said on Wednesday 30 September that it had received two improved binding offers, from Air France-KLM and Deutsche Lufthansa AG, according to its statement as reported by the Portuguese business site ECO. The two groups are bidding for 44.9 percent of the flag carrier. A further 5 percent is reserved preferentially for TAP’s workers, and the buyer could end up with up to 49.9 percent if those shares are not taken up, ECO and the Norwegian aviation site Hangar.no report; the state keeps 50.1 percent. Infrastructure and Housing Minister Miguel Pinto Luz said on 28 September that the government would have 15 days to evaluate the final proposals, putting the decision in mid-October. For the Nordic end of the corridor, the choice carries extra weight. Air France-KLM has agreed to take majority control of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), so one of the two outcomes would put Portugal’s flag carrier in the same group as SAS.
Fifteen days to decide
Parpública will now prepare a report describing the improvements and determining their “final absolute merit”, and send it to the members of the government responsible for finance and air transport, its statement says (NorthSouth HQ translation, as for all Portuguese quotations here). ECO reports that the government, judging the two groups’ earlier offers to be close, invited them in early September into a three-week negotiating phase to submit best and final offers; AeroTime dates Parpública’s invitation to 4 September, after first bids in July. “By the 30th the final proposals of the two companies will be presented, and the government has 15 days to evaluate the decision,” Pinto Luz said in an interview at the Portuguese Tourism Summit organised by the Confederação do Turismo de Portugal in Lisbon, ECO reported. ECO puts the deadline for naming the winner at 15 October. The selected bidder will then be invited to a last round of negotiation, and the Council of Ministers must approve the contracts Parpública prepares, ECO reports. According to Air Data News, the chosen group is expected to enter TAP’s capital in 2027, after regulatory approvals.
The offers have not been published. Bloomberg reported on 1 October that both exceed €1 billion for the 44.9 percent stake, which, as Jornal Económico noted the next day, would value the whole airline at more than €2 billion. According to Jornal Económico’s sources, both groups concentrated on raising the cash element. Lufthansa kept the all-cash structure of its earlier offer but did not close the door to a share swap as part of a future deal for a larger stake, should Portugal decide to sell more of TAP. Air France-KLM kept a share-swap option in its final offer, raised its cash offer substantially and told the government it remained open to Portugal acquiring Air France-KLM shares as part of the transaction. Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said in August that he was firmly convinced the sale would begin the full recovery of what the Portuguese had invested in TAP, a sum ECO puts at €3.319 billion.
The SAS connection
Air France-KLM agreed in July 2025 to raise its holding in SAS from 19.9 percent to 60.5 percent by buying shares from the investors Castlelake and Lind Invest, according to reports of the agreement at the time. The Danish state is to keep its 26.4 percent and its seats on the SAS board. Completion was expected in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals including the European Commission’s, and the deal has not yet closed. Simple Flying reported on 23 July 2026 that regulatory approval was still pending, and the Swedish site HurBra.se wrote on 1 September that the transaction still depended on approvals and that Air France-KLM expected to complete it before the end of 2026. NorthSouth HQ found no report of a Commission decision. In June, FlightGlobal reported that Air France-KLM had signed a €1 billion credit facility to fund M&A activity later this year, as it bid for TAP and sought to increase its SAS stake.
SAS has already changed alliance once. A founding member of Star Alliance in 1997, it left on 31 August 2024 and joined SkyTeam, the alliance of Air France and KLM, on 1 September 2024, after Air France-KLM became a shareholder in its restructuring. TAP is a member of Star Alliance, as is Lufthansa. A sale to Air France-KLM would therefore make the group that is set to control SAS the strategic shareholder in TAP as well, bringing the Lisbon hub and SAS’s Copenhagen hub under one parent once both transactions close. A sale to Lufthansa would give TAP a Star Alliance shareholder and leave SAS on the SkyTeam side. The reporting NorthSouth HQ reviewed does not say what either bidder intends for TAP’s alliance membership.
What the bidders are promising
Air France-KLM chief executive Benjamin Smith, in a LinkedIn statement on 30 September reported by AeroTime, committed to respecting TAP’s corporate and brand identity, strengthening its role as a transatlantic connector and making Lisbon the group’s exclusive southern European hub. Air Data News reports that the plan also covers cargo, maintenance and loyalty, and further development in Porto and other Portuguese cities, and that Delta Air Lines and the SkyTeam alliance have publicly supported the bid. Lufthansa has disclosed less about its final offer. It has emphasised its experience of running several network airlines, among them Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and ITA Airways, while retaining their brands and hubs, and has highlighted TAP’s position on routes to Brazil and the wider South Atlantic, according to Air Data News and Hangar.no. IAG, the parent of British Airways and Iberia, qualified for the process but withdrew before submitting a non-binding offer, Air Data News reports. AeroTime adds that, besides price, the government will weigh commitments on investment, workforce development and environmental measures.
Nordic routes and travellers
The two networks already meet on the corridor. Wikipedia’s list of TAP Air Portugal destinations, compiled from airline schedules, shows TAP serving Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm, with Gothenburg listed as a terminated route. Its list of SAS destinations shows Lisbon, Porto and Faro, plus a seasonal service to Funchal on Madeira. The two airlines are not alone on these routes, as NorthSouth HQ reported when Norwegian added Oslo–Lisbon. If Air France-KLM wins and both transactions complete, TAP’s Nordic routes and SAS’s Portuguese routes would belong to airlines in the same group. No joint schedules, codeshares or loyalty changes have been announced, and HurBra.se noted that no new SAS routes from Sweden have been presented as a result of the TAP bid. Simple Flying reports that SAS is concentrating its growth on Copenhagen; Air France-KLM presents Lisbon as its southern hub, drawing on TAP’s strength in Brazil, South America and Africa, a combination HurBra.se describes as potentially complementary while stressing that it is not a settled route map.
Why this matters for the corridor
For Nordic companies operating in Portugal, and for Portuguese firms selling into the Nordics, the decision bears on the air links that business travel and tourism between the two regions depend on, but its practical effects are not yet known: neither bidder has published commitments on Nordic routes, and both the TAP sale and the SAS transaction still need regulatory clearance. For the Danish state, which under the Air France-KLM agreement keeps its 26.4 percent of SAS and its board seats, the TAP outcome does not change its shareholding; it decides whether SAS’s prospective majority owner also becomes TAP’s strategic shareholder. What to watch: the government’s choice of winner, which ECO expects by 15 October; the final negotiation with the selected bidder and the Council of Ministers’ approval of the contracts; and clearance of the SAS transaction, which Air France-KLM expects to complete by the end of 2026, according to HurBra.se. The NorthSouth HQ directory of Nordic companies in Portugal lists the firms already operating there.