At 08:30, pilots, cabin crews and aircraft maintenance technicians, mostly in uniform or dressed in black and white, began to gather in Campo Pequeno square, from where they went in silence to the Ministry of Infrastructures, where they are due to deliver a letter.

Among the placards carried by the workers, it can be read: "If they are now hiring for the weight of gold, why did they lay off", or "the redundancies at TAP cost everyone dear".

The protest was called for by the National Union of Civil Aviation Flight Personnel (SNPVAC), the Union of Civil Aviation Pilots (SPAC) and the Union of Aeronautical Maintenance Technicians (SITEMA), in what they say is an unprecedented demonstration.

The goal "is to improve the quality of service that TAP provides to its customers and the sustainability of the company itself, maintaining the high safety standards of the operation for which we have always been known," they say.

"Workers and passengers are together when they travel and they are together in this fight for alignment between management options and what the country needs from TAP," the three unions say, also stating that "TAP planes do not fly without pilots, without cabin crew and without good maintenance they do not even leave the ground."