TAP Portugal
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TAP Portugal (Transportes Aéreos Portugueses) is the national airline of Portugal and based in Lisbon. It operates to destinations in Europe, Africa and North, Central and South America.
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History
The airline was founded as a public service on March 14 1945 and began commercial service on September 19 1946, flying from Lisbon to Madrid under its original name of Transportes Aereos Portugueses (TAP). On December 31 of this year, it began its Linha Aérea Imperial, a twelve-stop service, including Luanda, Angola and Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique. 1947 saw the inauguration of its domestic service from Lisbon to Porto. Service to São Tomé and London began in 1949.
In 1953, the airline became a private company and began service to Tangier and Casablanca.
The one millionth passenger flew on TAP on June 19 1964, 18 years after the airline began operations. In 1969 service to New York via Santa Maria Island in the Azores began. Boston was added to the New York service the following year. In 1975, TAP was nationalized, becoming a public corporation (Empresa Pública).
In 1989, service to Newark, New Jersey was introduced. In 1991, service to Berlin was established. In this year, TAP became a publicly-traded company (Sociedade Anónima). In 1993, TAP began flying to Tel Aviv. In 1994, TAP began a code sharing arrangement with Delta Airlines for north Atlantic service.
1996 saw the introduction of service to Boston via Terceira Island in the Azores, the inauguration of service to Macau and the launch of TAP's Web site. In 1997, service began to Punta Cana and Bangkok.
In 2005 TAP became the sixteenth member of the Star Alliance. The company rebranded from TAP Air Portugal to TAP Portugal in February 2005. It employs 5750 staff.
TAP Portugal has shareholdings in a number of other airlines: White (75%), Air Sao Tome e Principe (40%), Linhas Aereas de Sao Tome e Principe (40%) and Air Macau (15%).
Services
TAP Portugal operates the following services (at January 2005):
- Domestic scheduled destinations: Faro, Funchal, Horta, Lisbon, Ponta Delgada, Porto, Porto Santo and Terceira.
- International scheduled destinations: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bissau, Brussels, Budapest, Caracas, Copenhagen, Dakar, Fortaleza, Frankfurt, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Luanda, Luxembourg, Madrid, Maputo, Milan, Munich, Natal, New York, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Sal, Salvador, Sao Paulo, Sao Tome, Stockholm, Venice and Zurich.
See full article: TAP Portugal destinations
Fleet
The TAP Portugal fleet consists of the following aircraft (at May 2005):
- 6 Airbus A310-300
- 16 Airbus A319-100
- 11 Airbus A320-200
- 3 Airbus A321-200
- 4 Airbus A340-300
External links
- TAP Portugal (http://www.flytap.com/)
- TAP Portugal Fleet Detail (http://www.planemad.net/Airline/PT/TAP_-_Air_Portugal_(TP_TAP)/Fleet.htm?show=all)
- TAP Portugal Passenger Opinions (http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/tap.htm)
| Members of the Star Alliance |
| Air Canada | Air New Zealand | ANA | Asiana Airlines | Austrian Airlines bmi | LOT Polish Airlines | Lufthansa | SAS | Singapore Airlines Spanair | TAP Portugal | Thai Airways | United Airlines | US Airways | Varig Regional Members: Adria Airways | Blue1 | Croatia Airlines Future Members: South African Airways | Swiss |
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