TAP connection in Lisbon
 

Is one hour enough to connect in Lisbon coming from EWR and connecting to VCE?

If you are one ticket - yes.
LIS is a small airport.
If on separate tickets, then you are not connecting and much greater risk.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...e-tickets.html

If there were no lines, you could do the connection in 20 minutes because it's a small airport. However, be aware, many many flights land in LIS very early in the morning and passport control is a huge mess. If you're seeing that you're running late for your flight, they usually let you go to the front of the line to make sure you don't miss your flight. After passport control, you'll go through security and on to your gate.

How good/bad is TAP with rebooking on a later flight?
I am looking at an award booking and the only available option is a 55 minute connection. Not really in a rush, and would be fine staying in LIS for a night, but worried about TAP handling of misconnects, esp. on an award ticket.

Lord knows, TP is bad at many things. But from that comes a level of expertise in managing delays and the aftermath of delays.


If they've sold you a ticket, the connection is most certainly doable - if the incoming flight is on time AND immigration isn't in meltdown from the arrival flights before yours. I've experienced TP personnel waiting to whisk me over to my connecting gate on a shortened connection: I've also been totally abandoned.

But if the worst comes to the worst, booking an alternative connection is second nature: though getting them off the mind-set of the next available TP service (which might be the next day) could take a measure of persuasion.

They CAN do it: enlisting a supervisor saw me in an upgraded BA business-class seat for the final sector of a TP trip home from Brasil.

They'll rebook you on a later flight if you misconnect.

I have similar situation EWR-LIS-BRU with 1hr 10 to connect. Not super concerned if I miss my connection since there are worse places to get stuck. If I do have to take a later flight are there decent places to grab breakfast in Lisbon close and easy to get to from the airport?

Close, not really. But it is very easy to take the subway to downtown (~1h) and grab breakfast there (Restauradores, Rossio or Baixa stations).

I assume you are on TP 202 out of ERW, which puts you right in the middle of morning rush hour (5:20-6:20 AM) when ~10-12 international A330/340s arrive. With that number of flights, it all comes down to luck. LIS immigration is bad and getting progressively worse but that seems to be from volume. I arrive on TP 218 from BOS, which is scheduled to arrive 5 minutes before 202. Monday (3/24) I spent 2+ hours in the maze; 2 weeks before it was only 35 minutes. The difference was 10 minutes required to transfer via bus from a remote stand vs. a gate spot and JetWay. I've experienced more remote parking recently so that may be the trend.

Once in the terminal and at the immigration maze entrance, keep an eye and ear out for TAP or airport personnel calling out destination names. They will pull you out of line if you are in danger of missing your connection. From what I've seen, the danger zone is 30 - 35 minutes for EU flights but that changes based on personnel. If you don't hear your destination, get in line and flag down one of the individuals walking up and down the right side of the maze. Even if they don't pull you out right then at least know you are there should the need arise.

Unfortunately, I don't see the situation getting any better as TAP adds more US cities and we enter high season. It's gotten to the point a cheap, separately ticketed "connection" 50 minutes after my arrival may become a legitimate option. My final destination is always LIS but it would be worth the $60 to get back 2 hours of time!

Correct, and thank you for detailed response. I will keep an ear/eye out for someone calling for my connection. Flying business and no checked bags so hope for the best!

On a side note, both my TAP longhaul legs were updated A339NEO so excited to try that out

I just did the EWR-LIS flight and the bus ride to the terminal combined with probably over a thousand people in line for customs ate up about 2 hours of my 3 hour layover. And after an all night flight with very little sleep, it was pretty tortuous.

is this connection possible [at LIS]
 

I am looking at booking an award flight.
dtw to nap on united and tap airlines,
landing in Lisbon there is a 1:15 minute layover
before going to naples. is this possible to make
this connection?

I'm a bit confused as there is no flight on United from Detroit to Lisbon. I presume you are connecting in IAD or EWR?
There are numerous threads about connections at LIS on the Other European Airlines forum. For example:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/othe...on-lisbon.html

If connecting from UA EWR-LIS to TP LIS-NAP, the minimum connection time is 75 minutes. You will have to clear EU immigration in Lisbon.
No one can predict whether you will make it, as it depends on lots of factors. But if you miss the connection, you will be rebooked. There's only one daily LIS-NAP flight, though, so you probably would be rebooked either through Rome on a codeshare with AZ or via Frankfurt or VIenna on Lufthansa or Austrian.

If it's being sold on one ticket then it's possible. Whether you want to risk it is another question entirely and will depend on your thoughts after reading some of the threads as linked above.