TAP has revealed that it will suspend operations at London City airport, “due to the uncertainties of customer demand associated with Brexit”.


According to a statement from the Portuguese flag-carrier, while flights to London and other markets where there are high levels of competition are being cut, new routes are also being introduced, especially increasing links between Portugal and Spain.


in the case of Porto, “between 2017 and 2018, TAP registered an increase of 20 percent in the number of passengers, surpassing for the first time the two million mark,” and “the prospects are also positive for this year 2019, considering that between January and July, TAP is already growing 11 percent,” the statement read.


These “success figures” allow TAP to implement adjustments to the Porto network, to redirect capacity to markets where the company’s competitiveness is greater.


Thus, the company will suspend Porto-Barcelona and Porto-Lyon flights, where there is a wide range of competition, and build a new air bridge between Porto and Madrid, to have six daily flights, more than double the current number.


These changes will also allow the increase of connections between Porto and Funchal “with another daily flight, in the middle of the day, operated on the new Airbus A321neo Long Range and a daily Porto-Newark flight, plus four Porto-São Paulo flights per week.”
The air bridge from Porto to Lisbon will also gain another daily flight over the summer of 2019.


In the capital, “capacity dedicated to Stuttgart, Cologne and Basel will be redirected to other markets and a new air bridge will be created connecting Lisbon to Madrid.”


In addition, the airline “will launch a new route to Santiago de Compostela, and increase other connections to Spain, increasing daily flights between Lisbon and Barcelona (six to seven daily), Bilbao, Valencia and Malaga, all from two to three daily, and Seville from three to four daily.”


“Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city, will also have another daily flight departing from Lisbon thus improving connectivity with TAP’s intercontinental network,” according to the statement.


From 2020 flights to the USA will also be increased. “They double daily flights between Lisbon-New York (JFK), in addition to daily Lisbon-Newark and Porto-Newark flights. Miami will receive ten flights a week instead of the current seven. The new routes from Washington D.C. and Chicago will also have daily flights,” the airline said.


“In the last two years, TAP has registered a remarkable growth in the number of seats offered in its network. In 2018, the company provided 12 percent more seats and, in 2019, the capacity offered has already increased by 9.3 percent. In 2020, the focus will be on consolidating this growth”.