TAP to increase flights from Porto to Brazil, Lisbon next summer

TAP will increase flights from Porto to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, in the summer and two more daily flights to Lisbon, according to a statement.

“Porto will have three flights per week to Sao Paulo and two flights per week to Rio de Janeiro, which will contribute to an increase in the number of tourists from Brazil visiting Porto,” the statement said.

In addition, TAP “will also boost Porto-Lisbon airlinks with two more flights per day, thereby increasing the connections between the two cities to 10 flights per day, which will optimise the connections to all destinations operated by TAP at its Lisbon hub”.

TAP guarantees that these connections reinforce “its commitment to Porto and the North, ensuring that it constantly analyses all the possibilities of new routes and connections departing from national airports”.

On Monday, the Mayor of Porto argued in the Municipal Assembly that the State should grant a subsidy similar to that given to the Autonomous Regions to attract airlines to Porto’s Francisco Sá Carneiro airport.

After the CEO of TAP, Christine Ourmières-Widener, said in an interview with Público that Porto “will never be” a second hub for the airline, Rui Moreira demanded financial compensation, recalling that the state invests “100 million euros annually to subsidise flights to the Azores and Madeira”.

“It would be relevant if Porto – I can’t speak for Faro – claimed at least an equivalent amount, because our Metropolitan Area is much larger, it doesn’t have the problem of insularity”, he advocated.

The mayor said that he had already “congratulated Minister Pedro Nuno Santos for managing to approve TAP’s restructuring plan” and cited statements made by the Minister for Infrastructure and Housing in which, Moreira said, it was “absolutely clear” that “the importance of TAP is for the Lisbon hub, that maintaining TAP is due to the Lisbon hub, and that this is how TAP will function”.