TAP Portugal

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Template:Infobox Airline TAP Portugal (Transportes Aéreos Portugueses) Template:Airline codes is the national airline of Portugal and based in Lisbon. It operates to destinations in Europe, Africa and North, Central and South America.

1 History
2 Destinations
3 Fleet
4 External links

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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). Image:Airportugal.a321-211.cs-tjg.750pix.jpg TAP, like many airlines purchased the Boeing 747 during the '70s, which replaced the outdated Boeing 707; but these were eventually sold, due to lack of demand.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 TriStars and Airbus A310s on long haul routes. By the late '90s TAP had expanded its fleet by selling its older Boeing 727s and Boeing 737s 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 A340s 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%).

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