Sorry long story.


I purchased flights in Oct from Mad-opo-lis-cgn and return Cgn-lis-Mad. The problem occurred on my return flight. I got to the airport early for my return flight and for some reason CGN wouldn't allow me to pass security with my phone boarding pass, they asked me to get a hard copy. Well TAP doesn't fly all day, so literally I ended up waiting 3 extra hours till they opened. At that point, I knew it was going to be a long day. I finally got the boarding pass and everything seemed to be smooth all the way to the gate. They called boarding and people started to head to the air bridge, they never got past the first steps onto the air bridge. The front tire had issues and someone just noticed. They asked everyone back to the gate. We were told to wait and that they will alert us in 15 min to see how long it would take to resolve the issue, nothing was said initially. About 30 min later they came back and said there was a tire issue and they needed another 30 min to determine if the tire can be replaced. About 45 min later they said they needed another 30 min, they said they were trying to resolve the issue. The plane landed about 30 min before the board and I couldn't imagine a huge issue occurring, everything seemed normal. So this went on a few times after 4 hours of this with updates every 45 mins, I had enough and went to the gate agent and asked to be rebooked on any flight heading to MAD at this point. I was getting really nervous I was going to miss my connecting flight. Gate agent said there were no more flights leaving to LiS or MAD and that they were still working the problem. So I asked if they were providing any meals or anything to drink, the gate area had most of the things closed. Nothing around the gate area was open and I had been at the airport now for a few hours. They said they were sure the issue would get resolved soon and not to worry. We had been waiting for longer than the flight time at this point. 45 min updates became 90 min, the next thing you know its 6.5 hours. During this whole time I tried calling TAP customer service a few times and was looking for the last flight out to any major city, I knew if I flew i would have a chance to catch my MAD-PVG in time. Tap customer service wasn't helpful, they 800 number rang and rang. No one ever picked up. I found a flight on Turkish, leaving in about 45 mins. I went to the gate agent one last time and asked what was happening. He said the tire couldn't be fixed and that they were getting another plane flown in. I asked how long that would take and he said he didn't know, but they would let me know in about 90 mins. I asked if we were getting hotel rooms to accommodate us, he said they didn't know when the replacement plane would arrive. At this point, I had lost faith in TAP and it had been over 7 hours with no real communication and no water or food. I said screw it, ran to the international terminal and bought a ticket on Turkish. CGN-IST-MAD only problem was the IST-MAD was gonna cut it close.. like 20 min close. I bought the ticket and headed to the gate.. Got to the gate. Turkish plane was at the gate but they had arrived late and they were still cleaning. Starving at this point, there was a restaurant open I grabbed a quick bite and then boarded. I literally got the last plane out of CGN for the night, I guess I was lucky. I then flew to IST and got to IST around early morning. I had 2-hour layover so I went to the lounge. IST is SUPER NICE, im going back there again. Left the lounge and got on my journey to MAD. I must have been super lucky my IST-MAD arrived 50 min early. I guess we had good winds. I ran from the gate to the Iberia separate bus terminal, MAD airport SUCKS! IBERIA has its own terminal that I didnt know about and you need to get special transportation to take you to the other terminal, its not walkable. I finally got to the gate, they weren't calling final boarding but I wasn't the first on board. I made it with literally minutes to spare. I had flown all night to catch this flight and got super lucky. I don't believe TAP communicated properly and I don't think TAP honored my air passenger rights. When I got to PVG, I checked flight times. The replacement flight from TAP flew from CGN-MAD 1 hour after my PVG flight the next day. I would have missed my connecting flight and I would have missed my 2nd connecting flight from PVG-BKK. Basically I traveled all night for a 3-hour flight and if tap communicated properly I could have caught a direct flight.

I have been asking TAP for a refund of the ticket since NOV 2019, they keep ignoring me. I finally got tired and called my credit card company which offered me half of the ticket back. I then tried to get ec261 from TAP directly for the replacement flight (CGN-IST-MAD was about $360), they did not respond. I then wrote to DOT which included tap in the communication. DOT said they couldn't do anything bc it wasn't flown in the US. I then went to the SOEP Germany transportation authority (arbitration). Arbitration awarded me $700+ euros because they agreed that TAP was liable. TAP has refused to answer the arbitration email from SOEP. Soep has asked me to give them another month to respond. If TAP doesn't reply to arbitration I think my only recourse is to hire an attorney, AirHelp and those companies wont really help. I need to take TAP to court. Has anyone else had issues with TAP and arbitration???

UPDATE: Wrote email to TAP CEO, also sent email to customer service. Still no response. It's been july since I sent email. Im going to keep trying.