AAguy1979

I'd appreciate any recent feedback on TATL economy catering. I'll be flying TAP for the first time next week and curious what to expect. Yes, I know that economy catering is never, well, great but some airlines are tolerable. Any thoughts on the wine? Refills available? Are digestifs available with coffee/dessert? A bar or anything set up for top offs during the flights? Perhaps my expectations are two high but recent trips in both AF and LH were pleasantly surprising in terms of the quantity/quality of food and drinks refills available. Thanks for any information.

djjaguar64

Order a special meal in Y or else book the Business fare, its reasonable depends when you book it.

fly2nrt

Cheap Portuguese wines - easy drinkable. Yes on the refills. Yes on the digestifs. No on the bar but I'm sure you can just ask.

Food is fine. Nothing fancy but nothing downright atrocious.

Flyguy85

I was curious about this too, so I'll add what I saw last week in Y from SFO to LIS. There's no pre-dinner drink service like you'd get on AF (or even UA). Flight attendants came around with a cart full of meals with drinks on top in one combined service about 45 mins after takeoff. As far as I could tell, alcoholic beverages were limited to beer and wine. And while the wine was definitely Portuguese, we were served codfish with bok choy and oyster sauce. I mean, why not?

Flight attendants did offer refills as they collected trays, but that was it. No digestifs as far as I could tell, but maybe you could ask for them? The flight attendants were generally pretty friendly, but I didn't get a chance to check out if anything was set up in between meal services. Basically Y on TAP is fine, but if you're expecting awesome service like you'd get on JL or SQ, you'll be disappointed.

fly2nrt

Macanese?

tff

Daytime flights feature a bar with sandwiches in the galleys.

AAguy1979

I'm happy to report that I was pleasantly surprised by TAP's economy catering. I flew from Chicago to Lisbon and feel they were in the top 20% of TATL economy catering. The dinner was the standard economy offering - small salad with dressing, roll, butter, main, and a dessert cake. Rather than the all-too-common chicken or pasta, TAP offered fish or pasta. The baked cod with rice and vegetables was fantastic. Wines were perfectly nice Portuguese red or white (I think beer was offered too). The pours were generous, top offs offered, and the crew happily provided additional glasses of wine midflight. Coffee was solid, too. The breakfast was a huge step above most US carriers - fruit, roll, yoghurt, cold cuts, and cheese. Definitely better than the granola bar offered on a recent AA flight. All said, I'd happy choose TAP for future flights to Europe. Just keep in mind - Lisbon airport is an operational mess so try to keep connecting times of at least 120 minutes. Nonetheless, I'm delighted to have a few option to Europe with affordable one way flights. The buy up to business class on the flight home was well worth it, too!