I started a RTW in C on *A in April. It is my 4th RTW but the 1st one with E-ticket. I had so far travelled on 4 different airlines with this e-ticket RTW without any problems. End of October, flying on TAP from CDG to LIS, I was nearly denied boarding because TAP wanted a paper ticket! No mention of it at check in time in CDG but we were intercepted at boarding time and they insisted we showed a paper ticket!

They phoned their ticket office who said we needed paper tickets! Then they said they would check with AC. It lasted for 20 minutes and this caused the flight to be delayed; all that time they were never nice with us, as we were guilty of travelling without paper ticket! Finally, without knowing exactly how they solved the problem, they let us board the plane.

On board we faced the regular TAP mediocrity: even in C the space between the seats is so restricted that our knees were touching the seat in front of us for the whole flight.

The flight left with 40 minutes delay, without any word from the cockpit.

In C they served potatoes with a mixture of fish and potatoes and bread. Nutritionists would have screamed.

Arriving in LIS, we had to be bussed to the terminal. But there were no bus in sight (surprise, a plane has landed!).

We then had to wait 45 minutes for the luggage (40% of flight time).

My future travel plans will often bring me in Southern Europe but I will seriously consider other carriers!

Although TAP certainly has its problems, there are two aspects you mention that might not be accurate.

TP, as most European airlines, uses regular Y seats in a different configuration in medium-haul flights, so that they can increase or decrease the size of the cabin according to the flight's needs. Also because of that, all the rows ahead of the emergency exits have a bigger pitch than the ones behind. If you take a look at TP's seat pitches, the truth is there isn't much difference between their pitch and other airlines': the A319s' C class seats have a pitch of 34", whereas the A320s' and A321s' C class seats have a pitch of 32". Taking a quick look at the data regarding LH, AF, KL, LX, BA, OS, OK, AZ or IB in seatguru (which isn't always accurate, but can give us a rough picture), you'll reach the conclusion that it isn't TP alone that has this seat pitch in Europe.

In their C class service in Europe, TP offers you an option between two dishes. And they do so not by asking "fish or meat" or "chicken or pasta", but by providing you with a menu (check a TR of mine here). So if you chose that option... that was your choice.

1. Pitch is one thing. The way the magazine holder is organized is another one and you have it against your knees.

2. I did 2 intra Europe flights with TAP in C (October 09) and was never proposed a choice of meal. I would certainly not select potatoes with potatoes.

The magazine holder is organised the same way most other magazine holders are in the same type of seat. AFAIK, only LX and IB have a different magazine holder (placed in the top of the seat). Anyway, if it was bulky, the magazines could easily have been removed.

At lunch and dinner time you do have a selection of meals from the menu. It's standard. And usually TP's meals are quite good, especially among the European C class panorama; if take a look at the 3 menus posted in the TR mentioned, you'll be able to notice that the menus are actually quite balanced. If you took a CDG-LIS flight, you probably took TP425, which is a lunch time flight.