TAP Portugal has announced plans for major investment across the airline, including refurbishing cabin interiors and rebranding its regional subsidiary Portugalia.
The Portuguese government sold a controlling stake in the carrier to a consortium led by Jet Blue founder David Neeleman last year, and the airline has now confirmed investment plans to take place over the next two years.
These include:
- The rebranding of regional subsidiary Portugalia as TAP Express, with the creation of a new hourly Porto-Lisbon shuttle service, and fleet replacement with eight new ATR72 aircraft and nine Embarer 190s
- €60 million to be spent refurbishing cabin interiors, with a further €2 million investment in new digital reservation platforms
- Two new A330-200 aircraft to be delivered by June 2016, enabling the carrier to increase connections to North America. Business class will feature 20 lie-flat seats, and economy will also see new slimline seating. The carrier has a total of 53 new aircraft on order.
TAP has also announced plans to cease several “less lucrative” services from the end of March, namely from Porto to Barcelona, Brussels, Rome and Milan, and from Lisbon to Bogotá/Panama, Gothenburg, Hannover, Zagreb, Budapest and Bucharest.
