# WARNING! – TAP Flight Schedule Changes



## JohnBoy (Oct 25, 2009)

If you have any future bookings with TAP, PLEASE check that your flight is still operating. There has been a massive overhaul of the flight schedule and they will not necessarily inform you. My story as briefly as possible:

Flight 1: Luxembourg to Porto after a weekend break. About three weeks before departure, TAP emailed to say that our flight had been cancelled and we had been rebooked on an alternative flight the following day. I managed to get that one changed back to the original flight day, but we did have to travel via Lisbon with a change of planes there.

Flight 2: Lisbon to Terceira for a 3 night getaway. Again, about 16 days before travel, I received an email to say that the flight had been cancelled and that we had been rebooked for the following day. Effectively we were being forced to lose a day of our holiday including a prepaid hotel and car hire. My first call to the Contact Centre was met with, there is nothing we can do about it as we have given you more than 14 days notice. I called back and was dealt with by someone with a bit more about them who booked us onto a flight with SATA later on in the day that we wanted to travel. More about our return from Terceira later.

Flight 3: We are due to travel from Porto to Gatwick next Tuesday. As I am a bit of a flight geek, I decided to check to make sure that this week’s flight got away on time. Imagine my surprise to find that it did not operate at all. A call to the TAP Contact Centre revealed that this is yet another victim of the schedule changes but there was no apology for not bothering to tell us. They had, in fact, rebooked us onto a flight 4 hours earlier on Tuesday but that would not have been much help if we had still turned up at 5.20 as booked!

Flight 4: Now I’m getting a bit jumpy so went online to check a flight that we have booked to Amsterdam at the end of April. Surprise, surprise but that is cancelled too. Another 30 minutes waiting in the hold queue for the Contact Centre to be told, “We cancelled that on 22 January and you have been rebooked and are in the queue of people to be informed.” I’m sorry but the minute you cancelled that flight you should have told us immediately.

All that in less than four months. Consequently TAP are no longer on our Christmas card list.

Regarding the flight back from Terceira, when the cart came around, it became obvious there has also been a change in refreshment policy. No longer the little tray with a reasonable sized, well-filled roll and Compal fruit drink. Now all you get is a roll just large enough to get two bites, containing what the label said was ham, but the small print said was chicken ham. As for the drinks, it was a soft drink and tea or coffee and no alcohol. At first we thought that perhaps they were getting all PC and bowing those that allegedly don’t drink alcohol or eat pork and we were not so far from the truth. The agent in the contact centre that I questioned said he was surprised that we got anything to eat at all, as the new policy was no food or alcohol on flights of less than three hours duration. No doubt, soon they will be going all Ryanair/Easyjet on us and charging. As far as the roll was concerned, an off duty flight attendant told a friend last week that, as a mark of respect to the Muslims, all pork products have been removed from cabin service. I have plenty more to comment on that subject but might fall foul of the moderators if I haven’t already!

Long story, short. If you have any flights booked with TAP in the future, for goodness sakes get online now and make sure that they are still operating. Oh, and pack yourselves up a picnic basket!

Happy flying!


----------



## p9cbs (Jul 14, 2015)

What a shame. I have only recently started flying to Portugal with TAP and have found the little extras, food & drink to be such a nice addition that I have been happy to pay a little more and go with them rather that Ryan Air or Easyjet. We did have a change of flight time earlier this month they did inform us but we did loose a day of our holiday. I hadn't realised there were so many flights changed though. That kind of puts me off booking with them for the forseeable future now. Our return flight that was changed brought us back with 'Portugalia' rather than TAP. They did still provide the usual refreshments and seem to be a partner company as far as I could tell.


----------



## JohnBoy (Oct 25, 2009)

p9cbs said:


> What a shame. I have only recently started flying to Portugal with TAP and have found the little extras, food & drink to be such a nice addition that I have been happy to pay a little more and go with them rather that Ryan Air or Easyjet. We did have a change of flight time earlier this month they did inform us but we did loose a day of our holiday. I hadn't realised there were so many flights changed though. That kind of puts me off booking with them for the forseeable future now. Our return flight that was changed brought us back with 'Portugalia' rather than TAP. They did still provide the usual refreshments and seem to be a partner company as far as I could tell.


You are quite correct, that Portugalia are part of TAP, but read on.

During our latest trip, also with Portugalia, we had a good chat with one of the cabin crew and established that:

The name Portugalia will soon be replaced by TAP Express.

The aging fleet of Fokker 100 aircraft will be replaced with new Embraer models.

The current snack service offered on short haul flights will cease at the end of the year.

Around that time, other measures will be put in place making TAP Express more like a low cost model similar to Easyjet and Ryanair. It is expected that one of those measures will be to charge for hold baggage.

I would expect by now, that all the rescheduling has been completed and that any flights that you book from now onwards would operate as advertised, at least for the remainder of the summer season. If you book now for any autumn or winter flights, they might still change, but that is the norm for any airline when you book so far in advance.

Our flights between Porto and Gatwick that were changed without notifying us, caused us additional expense. I did file a complaint and claim for compensation online on 25th March. Whilst we received the standard, automated reply, we are yet to hear anything else. We're back at Porto on 29th and it will be going in the book if we have not had a response by then.


----------

