Lisbon, Nov. 7, 2025 (Lusa) - APAT - Associação dos Transitários de Portugal (Portuguese Freight Forwarders Association) denounced on Friday a "scenario of total operational collapse" in cargo ground handling services at the main national airports, based on a lack of resources, and called on the competent authorities to intervene.

"Reports of total disruption and functional ineptitude follow one another, portraying a veritable collapse in the handlers' daily operations, with significant delays, logistical constraints and a notorious inability to respond to existing demand," the association said in a statement, expressing "deep concern" about the situation, which they say jeopardises the country's competitiveness.

According to APAT, the lack of handling resources (ground handling at airports) has increased transit times and operating costs, due to the diversion of cargo to competing airports, such as Madrid in Spain, where it is then loaded and transported.

This situation, he said, "entails direct losses for the national economy and for the entire logistics chain that depends on the efficiency" of national airports and "weakens Portugal's role as a strategic logistics interface, particularly in air transport".

"APAT has followed, with an interventionist and critical voice, the progressive degradation of handling in Portugal, in which the application of arbitrary charges - by Menzies - was one of the most disruptive chapters of an unfortunate story that we will not stop telling and reporting," it added.

The association therefore called on the competent authorities to implement measures to ensure that airport services are "regular, transparent and efficient".

MPE/ADB // ADB.

Lusa