TAP-Air Portugal
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TAP-Air Portugal Reviews
"Food"
Good aircrafts but no option for food at all !!!
Always serving Non-Veg food, bad news for vegies.
"TAP - Take Another Plane"
Booked a trip with TAP last September for my mother that was visiting me in Morocco. The first segment was from Marrakech to Lisbon and the second one from Lisbon to Bucharest. They sent me the confirmation of the tickets by email and I only noticed a few days later that the name of the passenger on first flight was mine, not my mother's, on the flight from Marrakech to Lisbon. The segment from Lisbon to Bucharest was fine, it had my mother's name on it as being the passenger. The only explanation could be that the system had taken the name of the card owner ( mine) that was paying for the tickets. I called TAP Portugal and that is where all the nightmare started. It took about 45 minutes before I got someone on the phone. He dismissed me quite quickly by saying literally that I am lying and I filled in the wrong details. I called again and after another 45 minutes got someone more understanding that transferred me to 'Customer Support'. There, someone called Mariana Vicente listened to my story and said that it is not likely that the system could make a mistake but that it would take them some time to investigate. In the meantime, she recommended I buy another ticket for the same flight suggesting it would make a stronger case when I would ask to be reimbursed for the ticket bought in the first place. I followed her advice and bought the same ticket again. Two weeks later I called since no one from TAP has gotten back to me. After the usual 40 minutes of being put on hold, someone informed me that they haven't reached yet a conclusion - this was just 3 weeks before the actual flight ! I called again a week later and managed to get hold of Mariana Vicente who told me that the investigation had concluded that it was actually me who filled in the wrong details in the first place. She suggested that I should now ask for a reimbursement , but I knew from before that due to the ticket being Economy Class, there wouldn't be any. I have traveled dozens of times with Ryanair and Easy Jet but never ever had such horrible service in my life. All in all I wasted around 200 euros and hours of phone calls that lead to nothing, to not mention my phone bill - each call lasted at least 45 minutes and there were quite a few. I would have never booked with them in the first place if it weren't for a friend that was taking the same travel and I wanted my mum to travel with someone she knew.
"Avoid this airline at all cost"
Avoid this airline. I had a very good experience of them in the 1990s but have taken a series of flights with them in 2013 and have been astonished by the poor service and the rudeness and impatience of their cabin crew and gate staff. Below my most recent experience with them. I will not be flying with them again:
On December 18th I flew on a return TAP flight (that turned out to be operated on its return portion by Portugalia). The TAP checkin staff I spoke to a few hours before the flight (when I transferred from a US flight) were extremely rude and unhelpful. The actual Portugalia flight experience was a disgrace. We were packed like sardines into the most cramped aircraft I have ever known. There was not enough room for passengers' carry on luggage in the small cabin lockers so we were instructed to store our suitcases in the plane's only bathroom, stacked on top of and around the toilet bowl. Once the bathroom had been filled with suitcases and was inaccessible, some suitcases were placed loose in the aisle area next to the toilet and others bags were stored in the carts that normally carry food and beverages. The flight attendant who directed me to stack my suitcase on top of the toilet bowl (without physically helping me despite standing nearer to it) became angry when I queried the fact that if I did so no one would be able to use the only toilet on the plane. She said this was the my "fault" and that of the other passengers for bringing hand luggage on the flight and that I should consider myself lucky that she was "helping" me when we were entirely to blame - this despite my hand luggage being a very light samsonite regulation hand luggage size suitcase with contents below the permitted weight cited by TAP, and other passengers' suitcases seeming equally reasonable in size. When I pointed this out to her and stressed that no one at TAP checkin had informed me that there was no room for my hand luggage, she threatened in a very aggressive way to remove my suitcase from the flight. The flight took off late (arriving with a delay of approx 30-40 mins) and without any introductory message from the captain or crew, no apology or information about the delay and no security drill or security announcement. At some point later in the flight there was some form of general announcement but I didn't bother to listen to it. One stewardess was kind and polite, suggesting that a passenger might change places with me since I'd informed her on boarding that I'd originally requested a window seat but not been assigned one and would appreciate her telling me if ever one became available. Aside from this, the whole experience was shocking.
"They can ignore you forever"
Despite reasonable in-flight service, once on the ground you're on your own. Especially if you run into problems. Customer service in non-existent. They don't even honor their Star Alliance commitment: http://www.evilstaralliance.com/
"Avoid TAP at all costs"
Avoid TAP airlines at all costs, even if, when you are searching for flights, they offer the cheapest flight. They are totally unreliable, unprofessional and they often overbook their flights. If your flight gets delayed and you miss a connection, you are on your own: you will not get any instructions, help or indications about how to proceed. They will blame you for not making your flight even if you have 25 minutes to go from one side to the other in a big airport and you still need to go through security. Customer service always has lines of 4 to 5 hours waiting-time. They take months to resolve claims, and after months and sending them proof of their mistakes, they will say it is your fault. They do not care about losing a customer because they are a public company and the government subsidizes the company. I fly regularly and I never have had such a terrible experience. I am young and I cannot imagine how a middle-aged or elderly person could deal with such service: hours standing while waiting in line, running from one side of the airport to another, receiving wrong information from different TAP personnel, etc.
"on top of that, they lost my luggage..."
How do I begin? First of all, the food was terrible! Some stale rice with dried small pieces of chicken. The on borad entertainment was despicable. Oh! Did I mention I could not retrieve my luggage at the destination?
"Strange feelings"
Fly them ocasionally. Cabin crew is rude with everybody most of the time even though people are not asking for anything. Flight entertainment system is from the age when TV was invented.
Otherwise this airline is pretty OK.
"Very disappointing"
Poor customer service with unfriendly staff. I hadn’t heard bad reviews of TAP before but I was very disappointed by their customer service. Two flights (out of four) delayed. TAP won’t be at the top of my list next time.
