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If you don’t like whingeing by frequent fliers, skip this post!

I spent all day Tuesday travelling back from Brazil on TAP. Having taken four flights with them (LHR-LIS, LIS-GRU, VCP-LIS, LIS-LHR) I feel partially qualified to say that TAP are not a great airline. To recite the litany in no particular order:

• All the flights I took were late departing (so much so I nearly missed the connection outbound in Lisbon – fortunately that was late too),
• the planes are cramped and old-fashioned,
• the Lisbon airport frequent-flyer lounge is small and poorly equipped (and by the way is inaccessible from the non-Shengen gates so expect a long walk or an uncomfortable connection),
• the airline fails to communicate adequately about delays,
• boarding procedures are inefficient,
• many of the staff are brusque (apart from the crew on the last flight who were charming)
• carry-on restrictions are unreasonably small (1 lightweight item)

I tried really hard to think of some positive things to say here. So thanks to the great cabin crew on the LIS-LHR flight for redeeming things, and to the security checker at Lisbon who was lots of fun (and who I expect will read this as she has my card!).  I actually missed being on United, if you can imagine that. I’d only fly them again if the fare was really cheap (maybe that’s a positive – they aren’t on my no-fly list!).

Filed under: Travel |