THE TACV COMEDY - By Antonio Varela
Cape Verde is a country where the hospitals barely function, the boats don't run, and the people pray for international aid whenever it rains too much - and yet someone thought:
"You know what we really need? An international airline!"
Forget the doctors. Forget the boats. Forget the basics of daily survival. No, no, no. What this archipelago really needed was to take on TAP and Azores Airlines - two aviation giants - with its own "David Airlines", which shows up for the fight without even bringing a slingshot.
And let's talk about the masterstroke: renting a plane that costs millions just to fly exactly the same routes as TAP. Genius, isn't it? Except - plot twist! - the plane doesn't even have the range to reach Cape Verde's most important market: Boston. It's like buying a fishing boat that sinks in shallow waters and insisting that it's perfect for catching tuna.
The question remains: where did these decision-makers study? Is there a secret university called "Harvard for Hopeless Optimists", with courses in "Aviation Without Logic"? Or maybe this isn't business, but privilege: a convenient "private company" to take the elites on their European vacations. Because otherwise, my friends, this is pure comic theater.
The sad part is that the joke is on the people. The so-called "brains" who make these decisions spend their lives proving again and again that basic mathematics eludes them. Two plus two, in their world, equals: "renting a plane we don't need."
And so, the punchline remains the same: Cape Verde desperately needs the knowledge, discipline and common sense of its diaspora. Without that, we will continue to see this tragicomedy - an airline with no reach, competing with giants, while the country waits for a boat to bring rice.
TACV is not just an airline.
It is living proof that the Cape Verdean leadership has confused the art of governing with stand-up comedy.
Unfortunately, no one is laughing.
