PARIS (Reuters) – Air France -KLM met representatives of the Spanish company Air Europa for a possible participation, in order to extend its presence in the Iberian Peninsula, the director general Ben Smith told Reuters on Tuesday.

“We had a meeting with Air Europa,” said Ben Smith during an interview with Reuters in Paris, confirming for the first time the interest of the European airline for a stake.

He refused to disclose other details on the nature of the negotiations or the amount of participation.

In November, Air France-KLM said that discussions were underway concerning commercial cooperation with Air Europa as part of the Skyteam Alliance, but she had not wished to express themselves on possible projects to participate.

Some analysts estimated Air Europa at 1 billion euros.

The sale of a participation in Air France-KLM would allow its Spanish counterpart to reimburse 475 million euros loaned by the State during the Pandemic of COVID-19.

It would mark the next phase of the consolidation of the fragmented air transport in Europe, which, according to managers, is necessary to compete with American and Middle East groups.

Ben Smith also said that Air France-KLM was still interested in the privatization of the Portuguese national company TAP, but that it awaited additional indications from the Portuguese government.

“We love this geography. We believe that it can really help us better position our group compared to our competitors, but we are not going to continue the consolidation operation just for the pleasure of enlarging ourselves,” said the director general of Air France-KLM.

Lufthansa and Iag also expressed their interest in the privatization of TAP, which the Portuguese government said they wanted to carry out this year.

(Report Tim Hepher and Joanna Plucinska; Mara Vîlcu for the ; edited by Augustin Turpin)

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