TAP is Portugal’s flag carrier, and is a member of Star Alliance since 2005. Flying since 1945, TAP Air Portugal has its hub at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport. In figures released today, TAP carried a total of 15.9 million passengers in the 2023 calendar year, 2.1 million more than the previous year, equivalent to a growth of 15.2%.
A Deeper Look at the Figures
On UK routes, TAP carried more than 970,000 passengers, 5.7% more than 2022, representing an impressive increase of 4.9% in Available Seat Kilometres ( a measure of an airline’s carrying capacity to generate revenue, taken from multiplying the available seats on any given aircraft by the number of kilometres flown on a given flight) on 2019 figures.
TAP’s flight load factor was 80.8%, 0.8% more than in 2022 and already showing an improvement of 0.7% compared to 2019, the last pre-pandemic year. Revenue Passenger Kilometres (the number of kilometres travelled by passengers and used as an indicator of productivity) stood 16% more than in 2022 and up 1.4% in 2019.
TAP’s performance on all long-haul routes is particularly significant, with a total of 4.6 million passengers carried, 15.1% more than in 2022, which represents an increase of 9.8% compared to 2019.
On flights to the United States and Canada, TAP carried 1.46 million passengers, 18.4% more than in 2022 and 39.5% more than in 2019.
On routes to Brazil, the total number of passengers carried was more than 1.9 million, an increase of 20.3% compared to 2022 and 8.4% compared to 2019.
On the routes to the Azores and Madeira, TAP carried 1.5 million passengers last year, 13.2% more than in 2022 and 5.7% more than in 2019.
Growth took place across all of TAP’s network compared to 2022. However, compared to 2019, TAP still hasn’t fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels, particularly for traffic levels on the mainland Portugal, Europe and Africa routes. This means the airline is still 7% below the total number of passengers it carried in 2019, before the pandemic.
TAP now operates fewer aircraft with fewer slots at Lisbon airport compared to 2019, due to the impositions of the Restructuring Plan defined by the European Commission, which TAP is subject to until 2025.
Who are TAP?
TAP has made a clear commitment to modernising its fleet and offering the best product in the sector to its customers. The Portuguese airline operates one of the youngest fleets in the world, with all of Airbus’ next generation NEO aircraft: A320neo, A321neo, A321LR, and A330neo, with superior efficiency and reduced emission levels. TAP also operates 19 Embraer aircraft in its regional fleet (TAP Express).
TAP Air Portugal has been recognised and awarded as Europe’s Leading Airline to Africa, as well as Europe’s Leading Airline to South America by the World Travel Awards in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
