Establishment and early operations of TAP arriving at
London Heathrow Airport from Lisbon in 1954 On 14 March 1945, the airline was founded as
state-owned company with the name
Transportes Aéreos Portugueses (
Portuguese Air Transportation) and operated under the jurisdiction of the
Portuguese Civil Aviation Office. Later that same year, it took delivery of its first aircraft, a pair of
Douglas DC-3s. The airline began commercial services on 19 September 1946, performing an inaugural flight from
Lisbon to
Madrid, carrying a total of 11 passengers on one of its DC-3s. These were used on the routes to Africa and to major European destinations, including London. The Super Constellation was credited with noticeably reducing flight times over prior airliners on its routes.
The jet era – mid-1960s onwards VI-R of TAP at
London Heathrow Airport in 1966 During July 1962, TAP entered the
jet era, having procured an initial batch of three
French-built
Sud Aviation Caravelle, an early twin-jet airliner. That same year, new services were launched between Lisbon and
Las Palmas, as well as
Santa Maria in the
Azores. During 1963, additional European routes, serving
Geneva,
Munich, and
Frankfurt, commenced. In 1969, service to
New York City via
Santa Maria Island began; two years later,
Boston was added to the New York service. It also started a code-sharing with
US Airways on all routes between Portugal and the United States with connecting services out of
Newark and
Philadelphia. In 2007,
NATO named TAP Air Portugal the Best Engine/Aircraft Source of Repair for NATO's AWACS Maintenance Program. TAP Air Portugal has complete maintenance and overhaul bases in Portugal (Lisbon) and Brazil (Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre) and has specialised line maintenance stations in three continents: 4 in Portugal, 8 in Brazil, and 1 in Angola. It started scheduled flights to Moscow,
Warsaw and
Helsinki, in June 2009. After deciding to outsource its
Passenger Service System in 2008, TAP migrated its reservation and inventory systems to the Altéa system managed by
Amadeus. Before the migration, TAP had been using a system derived from Delta Air Lines called Tapmatic, in use since 1972. In 2010, TAP introduced two new routes to Africa:
Marrakesh and
Algiers, the latter was discontinued in 2017. The launch of these new routes highlighted the airline's growth strategy for Africa, an important segment in the network where the airline has continually expanded since 2001, going from 236,000 to 541,000 passengers, an increase of more than 129%. In 2011, new long range routes to both
Miami and
Porto Alegre were introduced.
Reprivatisation , co-owner of TAP between privatisation in 2015 and renationalisation in 2020, also the founder of
jetBlue,
WestJet and
Azul , Chairman of TAP since 2017 until March 2023 In order to obtain
its three-year national bailout, Portugal was forced to sell its interests in several companies, including the state-run airline. Several international operators were drawn by the airline's strategic position, but on 18 October 2012, the
Portuguese government announced a sole potential bidder for the privatised national carrier: South American consortium
Synergy Aerospace, owner of Colombian airline
Avianca. On 21 March 2014, the airline announced it would purchase two
ATR 42-600s for subsidiary
Portugália, replacing the smaller
Beechcraft 1900D previously operated by
PGA Express. The Portuguese government planned to sell its controlling stake in the flag carrier to one or more large investors in a relaunch of the privatisation in 2014. It intended to sell a 66% stake in the airline, with 5% of that set aside for its 7,500 staff. Among known bidders were South American businessman
German Efromovich, whose 2012 bid for TAP failed to meet the initial conditions; a consortium formed by American businessman
Frank Lorenzo and Portuguese entrepreneur
Miguel Pais do Amaral; the American Brazilian businessman
David Neeleman, founder of
JetBlue in the United States and
Azul in Brazil; and finally Globalia, the parent company of
Air Europa. In May 2015, a pilot
strike lasting over a week led to the cancellation of around 3,000 TAP Air Portugal flights. In June 2015, the Portuguese government decided to sell the TAP Air Portugal Group, owner of TAP Air Portugal, to the Atlantic Gateway consortium formed by partners
David Neeleman and Humberto Pedrosa, who took control of 61% of the capital of the flag carrier. On the memorandum signed by the new owner, TAP Air Portugal had to keep Portugal as the airline's main hub for a minimum of 30 years. The consortium that secured the company's privatisation in June 2015 promised to buy 53 new Airbus aircraft for the airline; new orders included 14 wide-body A330s and 39
narrow-body A320-family aircraft.
Renationalisation , TAP's CEO from June 2021 to March 2023 In October 2015, a new left-wing government sought to return majority control of the airline to the state through
renationalisation, and in February 2016 signed a deal with the private consortium stating that the company was 50% owned by the Portuguese state, 45% by the Atlantic Gateway Consortium and 5% of available shares to TAP collaborators and employees. On 14 January 2016, TAP Air Portugal announced that subsidiary
Portugália Airlines would be rebranded
TAP Express by 27 March 2016, as part of further restructuring measures within the group. A downsizing of the carrier network also took place that month, with TAP announcing the end of long-haul flights to
Panama City,
Manaus and
Bogotá as well as European connections to
Hanover and
Zagreb. TAP Air Portugal planned to promote Portugal as a tourism destination in the United States, and Lisbon as a gateway into Europe for North American travellers, and in February 2016 announced the return of
New York's John F. Kennedy International and
Boston's Logan International as daily non-stop destinations from Lisbon. The Boston service started on 11 June and the new JFK daily flights on 1 July, both operated with new
Airbus A330-200s received in June of the same year from
Azul Brazilian Airlines. These two new routes reinforced the airline's presence in the American market, along with service to
Miami from Lisbon and
Newark from Lisbon and Porto. Taken together, the amount of TAP Air Portugal flights to the US grew to 30 per week. TAP expanded its network in 2017, adding 10 routes, some of which were previously operated by the airline:
Abidjan, Ivory Coast;
Alicante and
Las Palmas, Spain;
Bucharest, Romania;
Budapest, Hungary;
Cologne and
Stuttgart, Germany;
Fez, Morocco;
Lomé, Togo;
London City Airport, United Kingdom and
Toronto, Canada. In March 2017,
Miguel Antunes Frasquilho, president and CEO of
AICEP Portugal Global, was selected to be TAP Air Portugal's new chairman of the board. On 14 September 2017, TAP Portugal was renamed
TAP Air Portugal, going back to the name used between 1979 and 2005. In 2020, amidst the
COVID-19 Crisis, the
European Commission approved the
Portuguese government's plan to bail out the flag carrier, paving the way for the first
tranche of €1.2 billion ($1.36 billion) government loan to help it through the crisis and a restructuring plan including employee downsizing and sale of aircraft. On 14 November 2022, the
U.S. Department of Transportation announced historic enforcement actions against six airlines, including TAP, $126.5 million in required refunds paid and a $1.1 million penalty, 'for extreme delays in providing refunds.' The Department expects to issue additional orders assessing civil penalties for consumer protection violations this calendar year. According to it, the Portuguese government wants to conclude the sale within the first semester of 2023. The immediate previous renationalisation which currently remains was a prominent political promise from the first mandate of the current executive, within the argument that TAP was a strategic company for the country's economy and as such must be public. The renationalisation received strong criticism from the
Portuguese Court of Audits which affirmed it would not be efficient and would burden taxpayers in various millions of euros. The injection of Portuguese taxpayer's money was €337.500.000,00 directly and €615,000,000.00 indirectly on debts' guarantees for the company. In October 2022 the Portuguese Court of Audits again highly criticised the taxpayers' injection of money into TAP stating in its Assessment on the General State Account for 2021 that it should have been accounted as an effective expense and not as a financial asset: 'the classification of financial assets, with no expression in actual expenditure but with a significant impact on debt, which essentially seek to pursue social and public policy objectives and are not intended to produce a financial return'. Thus considering it an unprofitable public investment, with sovereign debt risk association for the State and consequently menacing taxpayers' legitimate interests. On 6 March 2023, the Portuguese government fired the airline's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman after a damaging report from the Portuguese General Inspectorate of Finances. On 28 February 2025, during French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Portugal, Air France-KLM announced that it will bid for a 49% stake in TAP. Lufthansa and IAG are also bidding. Lufthansa confirmed its participation on 20 November. By 2 April 2026, the deadline for intital bids, Air France-KLM and Lufthansa submitted bids while IAG withdrew from the process. ==Corporate affairs and identity==