By Albert Kuan
TAP Air Portugal Announces Multiple New Routes to Europe, Africa
TAP Air Portugal is launching a series of new routes next year to expand its network across Europe and Northern Africa. Next summer, the airline will launch scheduled service to Ibiza, Spain; Fuerteventura, Spain; Oujda, Morocco; Zagreb, Croatia; Djerba, Tunisia and Monastir, Tunisia.
With the exception of Zagreb, where services will begin earlier in March of next year, the new services will begin operating sometime between May and June 2021.
In addition to these confirmed plans for next year, the Star Alliance carrier has plans to launch in 2021 its first flights to Cancun, Mexico; Cape Town, South Africa; Agadir, Morroco and Santiago de Compostela, Spain. All four destinations were originally supposed to begin in 2020, but their starts were postponed because of COVID-19.
Schedules for its six new destinations launching next year have been released, and according to the airline, bookings for all destinations will be available on Sept. 15.
In June, TAP Air Portugal will offer three new weekly flights to its neighboring country, Spain. It will launch two weekly flights from its Lisbon hub to Ibiza and one weekly flight to Fuerteventura. The flight to Ibiza departs on Saturdays and Sundays, departing from Lisbon at 11 a.m. and arriving in Ibiza at 1:45 p.m. The flight then leaves for Lisbon at 2:30 p.m. and arrives at 3:25 p.m. TAP’s Fuerteventura service will operate once weekly on Saturdays, departing from Lisbon at 11 a.m. and arriving at 1:20 pm. The return flight leaves at 2:05 p.m. and arrives back at 4:10 p.m.
TAP Air Portugal will offer two new weekly flights on Saturdays and Sundays — beginning this summer — to Oujda, Morroco. The service departs at 10 a.m. and arrives in the neighboring African country at 12:05 pm. In addition to the new Morrocco service, TAP Air Portugal will begin service to Tunisia, flying to the cities of Djerba and Monasti twice weekly on Sundays and Fridays, respectively.
The airline is also resuming service to Zagreb, Croatia after a five-year hiatus. Services will run three times per week, each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday beginning March 28, 2021. Flights are currently scheduled to run on a seasonal summer basis, but the service may be extended into the winter travel season should there be sufficient demand.
Although travel to Portugal, and many European countries, is still limited to essential travel for many U.S. nations, both Portuguese and European nationals can now travel to Portugal or reach other destinations in TAP Air Portugal’s network. TAP has now returned to 86% of its European destinations and is enforcing guidelines for health and sanitary safety in light of COVID-19.
Albert recently completed his undergraduate studies in Business Accounting at USC in Los Angeles and he is currently recruiting for a corporate analyst position at one of the U.S. legacy carriers. During his college years, he interned at LAX for Los Angeles World Airports working behind-the-scenes (and on the ramp) in public relations and accounting. Outside of writing for AirlineGeeks, he enjoys trekking the Hollywood hills, visiting new hotspots throughout SoCal, and doing the occasional weekender on Spirit Airlines.
