TAP Air Portugal

TAP was founded on March 14, 1945, as Transportes Aereos Portugueses. Its first commercial flight went from Lisbon to Madrid in 1946 with a Douglas DC-3, a propeller airliner of that era. The same year it opened the bold Linha Aerea Imperial. This multi-day, multi-stop colonial route ran from Lisbon to Luanda and Lourenco Marques, now Maputo. It was among the longest air routes in the world.

Portugal nationalized the airline in 1975 after the Carnation Revolution, and it became TAP Air Portugal in 1979. Its network leaned on Brazil, Portuguese-speaking Africa, and Portuguese communities abroad. A part sale in 2015 brought in the Atlantic Gateway consortium, a group led by David Neeleman and Humberto Pedrosa. They renewed the fleet and turned Lisbon into a fast-growing transatlantic hub, an airport where travelers change planes.

TAP also pioneered the Airbus A321LR on thin North Atlantic routes. The pandemic forced state ownership again in 2020, plus a painful restructuring approved by the European Union. Today TAP is the leading European airline to Brazil, serving more Brazilian cities than any other non-Brazilian carrier. A new sale has drawn interest from Lufthansa Group, Air France-KLM, and IAG. TAP has belonged to Star Alliance since 2005.

TAP flies about 100 aircraft, all built by Airbus. Short routes use A319s, A320s, A320neos, and A321neos. Long routes rely on A330-900neos, which TAP launched worldwide in 2018, plus a few older A330-200s. Regional arm TAP Express adds Embraer E190s and E195s.

Its special weapon is the A321LR, a long-range single-aisle jet. TAP sends it across the Atlantic to Brazil, the United States, and Canada.

That makes thin routes work, meaning routes with too few passengers for a bigger jet. More A320neo-family and A330neo jets keep arriving as the sale unfolds.