TAAG On A Mission For Profitability By 2028

LUANDA, Angola—TAAG Angola is targeting breakeven by 2028 as it leverages its newly opened hub in Luanda, expands its African and overseas network, and upgrades its fleet with new Airbus A220s and Boeing 787s.

“There is a positive trend at TAAG in terms of our financials, which have gone from $250 million plus losses [annually] to just about $120 million [annual loss in 2024] in the last three years,” said Miguel Carneiro, chief commercial officer at the state-owned carrier. “We expect to be a net profitable airline by 2028. It is a work in progress.”

Aviation Week spoke with Carneiro at the African Airlines Association annual meeting in Luanda, Angola, in early December.

Under TAAG’s 2024-2029 strategic plan, the aim is for the southern African carrier to reach annual revenues of $1.3 billion by 2028-2029. In 2025, the airline is expected to achieve over $450 million.

A recent example of its ability to boost revenues was the Black Friday ticket sale at the end of November. “We sold 29,000 tickets in one day worth $12 million,” Carneiro said. This is a record for daily sales at TAAG, up from its previous peak of $7 million in 2024 and a high of $2 million in 2023.

“This tells us of the potential of this enterprise,” he said. “To do this you embrace technology, increase your productivity, and stabilize your service levels.”

A major milestone for TAAG’s development was the full transfer of international flights to Luanda’s new Dr. António Agostinho Neto International Airport in October.

The airline has consolidated its domestic operations, which transferred from the old downtown Luanda airport in November 2024, and its international flights at a single hub, facilitating the national strategy to establish Luanda as a southern African hub.

To accelerate the execution of its strategy, TAAG, in conjunction with partner Lufthansa Consulting, has formed a dedicated implementation team. “We put this in place because we saw that it wasn’t going at the speed that we wished,” Carneiro said.

But first, the question of TAAG’s identity had to be revisited. “Our vision is we want to be an airline of choice for passengers and cargo, connecting Angola to Africa and Africa to the world,” he said.

Work is already underway on one of the “quick win” focus areas: updating TAAG’s network. “We started with increasing network depth in key regional markets, providing connectivity in the triangle between Angola, South Africa and Nigeria.

“We’re talking about 400 million inhabitants for which we know we have the opportunity to provide more service,” he said. TAAG has boosted frequencies on its Luanda to Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Lagos services.

Outside this triangle, TAAG is targeting destinations up to four hours from Luanda to create a regional spoke structure into its hub. “Within a 3–4-hour radius of Angola you have 1.4 billion inhabitants,” Carneiro said.

TAAG has already grown its transfer traffic from 14% to 26% of its total this year and the target is to reach 40% by 2029.

“These all connect at the new airport with a very aggressive bank structure that allows passengers to transit in Angola in a more attractive time period as possible,” Carneiro said.

The arrival of TAAG’s A220s is central to this mission. The carrier will save $4.5 million per year using this aircraft on its Angola-South Africa schedule compared to its current types, he said.

TAAG is taking a total of 12 A220s with the fourth delivered in early December and units arriving regularly through 2027.

As TAAG takes delivery of A220s and 787s, adding to its existing fleet of 777s, 737s and De Havilland Canada Dash 8s, another priority is to increase aircraft utilization.

“Our main target for the next four years is to increase our productivity,” Carneiro said. “We are talking about generating more value for money. We are talking about increasing our ASKs, and therefore we need to fly our airplanes more, rotating our airplanes in half of the time that we are currently achieving.”

Alongside a more effective network and better aircraft utilization, the route to profitability will see TAAG becoming a “leaner machine. This means fine tuning the way we operate and the way we are structured, and we are working on that,” he said.

“We are doing this, for example, by doing strategic partnerships which reduces headcount, notably in non-core services such as handling services where we have announced a partnership with Menzies Aviation,” Carneiro said.

This will see 400 employees move across to a TAAG-Menzies joint venture handling firm. “They continue to be part of the ecosystem, but in a different format,” he said. In one move, TAAG, which has 2,600 employees, significantly reduces its head count.

The focus is on the core money-making ability of the airline. “It is about reshuffling the parts, so we want more pilots, more mechanics, more specialized aviation professionals in areas like corporate finance, revenue management, pricing, e-commerce and ancillaries,” Carneiro said.

In December, TAAG took delivery of its second 787-10, adding to two 787-9s, and is discussing the addition of more with Boeing. “We see further widebodies being needed around 2029, but being needed and being available, that’s another story,” he said.

TAAG is in advanced negotiations to sell its fleet of three 777-200s but has decided to keep two of its younger 777-300s and refurbish them. The three older 777-300s will either be sold or retained with a decision pending on their future.

Although the A220 will become TAAG’s single-aisle aircraft of choice in time, TAAG will retain its four 737-700s until 2027-28. “We have got a mitigating plan for the engine time on wing [with the A220], with the 737s as the backup plan, plus a spare engine, plus all the support programs from Airbus and Pratt & Whitney, so we feel that we’re in a good position,” he said.

Looking at long-haul destinations, “Paris and London are in our pipeline for 2026 and Porto, [Portugal],” said Carneiro, with a plan to serve the European capitals on a three times weekly basis. A route to Guangzhou, China, is also planned for the first quarter of 2026.