(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 .
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'').
TAP, like many airlines purchased the
Boeing 747 during the '70s, which replaced the outdated
Boeing 707 ; but these were eventually sold, due to lack of demand. They were replaced by
Lockheed TriStar s and
Airbus A310 s on long haul routes. By the late '90s TAP had expanded its fleet by selling its older
Boeing 727 s and
Boeing 737 s and had replaced them with
Airbus A319/20/21 series planes. The TriStars were also sold to Air Luxor and were replaced by more capable
Airbus A340 s giving TAP a large fleet of
Airbus only
Aircraft .
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 Air Lines for north Atlantic service. This agreement was ended in
2005 .
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 . Flights to Macau and Bangkok have since been discontinued.
In
2005 TAP became the sixteenth member of the
Star Alliance . TAP Air Portugal was rebranded as TAP Portugal in February 2005. It employs 9750 staff. TAP also ended its code sharing agreement with
Delta Air Lines and began a new agreement with
United Airlines as part of its membership in
Star Alliance . Under this new agreement United's code (UA) is placed on TAP's trans-atlantic flights and some African flights, and TAP's code (TP) is placed on United flights.
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%).
The TAP Portugal fleet consists of the following aircraft (at March 2006):
The average age of the TAP fleet is 9.1 years (at April 2006)
Formerly Operated
Boeing 707
Boeing 727
Boeing 737
Boeing 747
Lockheed TriStar
