A friend wants to fly from LHR to CCS via LIS.

Price is fine. But as he's trying to gain points on his BD DC.. has to get as many *A flights as he can.

So... what is the general conscensus of TAP?

Some other on-line reports give it a pretty dim view. But the value of FTers are the only ones that count!

I have only flown one small segment (LIS-OPO), and it was fine. No worse than any other better *A airline I've been on in Europe (and better than SpanAir). TAP's fleet is pretty decent, food (in business class) was excellent.

Flew TP159 LIS-SSA in Y recently, very pleasant.

Also OPO-LIS, flight was cancelled, eventually rebooked with a 4 hour wait in the TAP lounge, excellent port, incoherent trip reports here

the one time i flew them, i found the customer service awful, but it may just be the ground agents in dakar that i was frustrated with. after flying EWR-LIS-DKR, they told me my bag did not make it onto the plane, despite a 12-hour layover in lisbon before.

they said to come back the next day, as the bag would be on the next flite. went back to the airport the next day and no bag. the next day, same thing. i then had to travel to a remote village with no communication, so i told the ground staff i would be back in a week for my return flight and please just hold onto my bag in DKR until then.

when i got back to dakar and the airport for my return flight, they told me they couldn't find my bag. a little upset, i walked to the baggage carousel and opened the flaps to stick my head outside to yell some choice obscenities. there, about 100 yards away, i saw my bag sitting by itself on the ground

The new A330s in their fleet are supposed to be quite nice, especially in biz.

EWR-LIS was fine in C, but luggage delivery in LIS was atrocious: 1 hour+

One word: S-L-O-W!

From the horrible check-in staff who seem to disappear all the time. Entire flight with over 130 PAX handled by two very SLOW agents.

The commencement of flight boarding was over 2 hours late with no info provided.

Luggage was over an hour wait!!

TAP is a 2 star airline and it shows.

I would avoid them unless you have no other options.

Was this only from 1 travel experience with them or multiple? Let's be honest here, how many times have you experienced slow checkin staff from any other star alliance member or the flight was delayed without any information provided?

Like Mecabq stated "No worse than any other better *A airline I've been on in Europe "

This was my experience with three separate flights this summer. DELAYS, POOR CHECK-IN & BOARDING.

3 for 3!

You still didnt answer my question, "how many times have you experienced slow checkin staff from any other star alliance member or the flight was delayed without any information provided?" Please don't tell me you have never experienced "DELAYS, POOR CHECK-IN & BOARDING." with any other airline within the Star Alliance group.

I have flown with them this year approximately 10 times in Europe and to Brazil, maybe 2 out of 10 flights were delayed 45 minutes and the rest were on time. But I find this normal within the airline industry.

I have experienced delays, poor check-in & boarding with other STAR carriers, who hasn't? But NEVER back to back (x3) as I did with TAP at three separate airports GRU, LIS & BCN

Will AVOID TAP whenever possible.

TAP at LIS is a model of efficiency compared with, say, UA at IAD.

Things to watch out for if you are on a morning departure from LIS to the USA or Brazil:
- airport-bound traffic-jams, take the ring-road-freeway even though it's longer
- long-haul checkin counters are upstairs, each for a specific flight number. Star Golds can ignore these and use the 3 first-class counters on the left.
- after security there's a disorderly line for passport-control, can be 45-60 minutes for non-EU passports. [EU passports take the leftmost line which moves quickly.]

I've just done LGW-LIS-REC-LIS-LGW in C, not bad at all.

Only one delay, 2 hours or so LGW-LIS, but this was due to thunderstorms at LIS so not within TAP's control.

Pretty poor lounge in LIS, no priority boarding, but these for me are relatively minor points, particularly as I was travelling for leisure.

The long hauls were on an A330, seats similar to old style Lufthansa ones with a little more pitch. The A340s and A310s have a sloped lie flat seat I understand - that's the one they put on the website. Think CCS is an A310 so should get those.

Food is fine as long as you don't order the vegetarian option, which my girlfriend did - they interpret it as vegan and she got a less than inspiring dried out rice/bean/artichoke combination. Same one on 2 of the 4 legs!

Good service, no problem getting drinks etc - I was pleasantly surprised and would recommend them given other options to South America.

Er...ok.

Maybe I'll ask him to fly on AC instead....

I did EWR-LIS-EWR last year in C. Outbound was on an A310 which had the lie-flat seats which are fine - kind of a Greyhound bus version of a SpaceBed. Return was on an A310 which did not have the new seats - it had lounger seats that would have been embarrassing 10 years ago, let alone now. I don't know if that aircraft is still lurking out there, it was the last one without the new seats I believe.

I oddly found TAP intra-Europe in C to be better than average with quite decent food and good service, distinctly superior to the trans-Atlantic flights.