Review of TAP Air Portugal flight Paris Porto in Economy

Airline TAP Air Portugal
Flight TP459
Class Economy
Seat 27F
Aircraft Airbus A320
Flight time 02:10
Take-off 28 Jan 23, 07:10
Arrival at 28 Jan 23, 08:20
TP   #72 out of 94 Airlines A minimum of 10 flight-reports within the past two years is required to appear in the rankings. 317 reviews
Salomon_Aviation+Travel
Published on 12th December 2023

Routing


A visual of my European trip I took in January 2023. Total distance: 4,036mi/6,496km


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This trip report's flight route between Paris (ORY) and Porto will take 2hrs 10 mins at distance of 747mi/1,360km


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Paris, France


Welcome to another trip report! This is my third city of three that I visited when I decided to embark on my European trek this past January. I decided to revisit one of my favorite European city of Paris as it worked perfectly within my planned itinerary. I've been to Paris twice before (once in spring and once in the summer) but this was my first time visiting Paris in mid January and let me tell you, it was very very cold ?.  Out of the five days I stayed in the city not one day did the clouds led up nor the cold. despite that I did make the most of the trip by revisiting my favorite parts of the city. 


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As mentioned before about the weather, it stayed cold and cloudy my whole time in the city. I hoped to get a view of the iconic Eiffel Tower but it remained shrouded in the clouds during my stay.


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The absolute highlight of my trip would definitely be my visit to the Louvre which was so memorable. A must visit if your ever in the city!


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Day of departure


The day of travel came up and I was ready to head to my next destination of Port, Portugal! This was my first time departing out of Paris-Orly Airport so I was quite excited to experience a new departure out of Paris instead of Charles de Gaulle airport. ORY is closer to Paris city center and I you notice that when taking public transportation. From what I last recalled it took about 40 minutes to reach the airport. I arrived at the airport a little after 4am for my 7am departure and there was already a lot of action going on at the airport.


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By looking at the flight info board I realized that the reason for so much movement is that there were a lot of early morning departures out of ORY. 


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After confirming my flight on the departure board I proceeded to head to security control.


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Security control went by smoothly and I was airside in just over 5 minutes. 


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A look again at the departure board and still no gate info. One thing I seriously dislike about when traveling within Europe is that they don't publish the exact gate number only up until when boarding starts. I need to know the logical reason for this. 


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Luckily I checked on FlightAware app and it showed that my aircraft had arrived the previous night from Lisbon at gate B16 so I hoped that this was be my gate which it ultimately was. One thing I disliked off the back was the extreme limited seating there was around the gate areas and zero views of any aircraft from any of the gates. Just a few moments after this picture was taken there was a ton of people that congregated in this small space. There was three flights worth of people congested in this small space. As you can imagine it got very uncomfortable very quick.


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boarding


The moment of boarding began about 50 minutes before departure. Despite me buying a basic economy ticket I was surprised that I was given boarding group A.


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Some information about my plane:
Flight number: TP 459
Aircraft: Airbus A320-214
Registration: CS-TNW
Delivered: May 19, 2006
Age: 17.6 years


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I was lucky and was randomly assigned seat 27F at check-in.


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As expected there are no PTV's on TAP's domestic fleet. 


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These seats offer a tight 28" pitch. However due to the slim design seats you really don't feel it as bad. 


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While we still had time on the ground I decided to check out the tray table (and yes I'm wearing gloves as the plane was freezing cold ?). The tray table was a decent size however it was not extendable.  


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Next to us is an EasyJet A320 getting ready for it's 7am departure for Toulouse. Flight time: 1h


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Just about finishing refueling.


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Boarding is completed and the flight load for this flight were 100% full in both Y & J.  


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Pushback


We pushed back 5 minutes ahead of schedule followed by a manual safety demonstration by the crew. 


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A rare AirFrance A318 in between two Transavia B737's


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takeoff


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Until next time Paris!


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inflight service


About 20 minutes into flight the FA's sprung into the cabin to begin the inflight BOB service. Nothing is complimentary on domestic European flights with TP (only a free cup of water). It's ashamed that they don't even offer complimentary soft drinks as they do in the states, and that's saying a lot ?. A stark difference from my experience on another star alliance airline I flew just before this one with Aegean from Athens to Paris (which you can find here).


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TAP does not offer any inflight entertainment (at least on this flight there wasn't). But who needs entertainment when you have amazing views of this early sunrise.  


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Flying over Basque country in northern Spain.


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initial descent


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Rio Douro


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Flew right by the city of Porto.


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Lining up to land on the runway.


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Welcome to Porto, Portugal!


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arrival at gate


We arrived at the gate 25 minutes ahead of schedule. 


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On last look at our A320, thanks for the safe ride!


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This concludes the trip report, thanks for reading!

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Verdict

TAP Air Portugal

2.9/10
Cabin5.5
Cabin crew5.0
Entertainment/wifi0.0
Meal/catering1.0

Paris - ORY

4.1/10
Efficiency4.0
Access6.0
Services3.0
Cleanliness3.5

Porto - OPO

6.4/10
Efficiency7.0
Access7.5
Services5.0
Cleanliness6.0

Conclusion

While this flight went very smooth and got me to my destination early, this was a disappointment flying with TAP in terms of passenger service and amenities. From the tight seat pitch to the zero complimentary beverages and entertainment onboard, there truly was no difference in the product between flying TAP or any other LCC such as Vueling or EasyJet. On top of that the crew on this flight looked tired and grumpy which made the experience slightly worse. If there was no or slight fare difference between TP and other LCC, I wouldn't pay extra to fly with TAP as there virtually no additional amenities you'd expect from a full service carrier.

Information on the route Paris (ORY) Porto (OPO)

Les contributeurs de Flight-Report ont posté 27 avis concernant 5 compagnies sur la ligne Paris (ORY) → Porto (OPO).


Useful

La compagnie qui obtient la meilleure moyenne est TAP Air Portugal avec 7.2/10.

La durée moyenne des vols est de 2 heures et 39 minutes.

  More information

1 Comments

If you liked this review or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post a comment below !
  • Comment 641128 by
    KévinDC TEAM SILVER 6744 Comments
    It seems to be a common observation of TAP short-haul Y that it's not really any different from an LCC, which is also the case for next-door-neighbour Iberia. The main attraction to the legacy carriers would be network and frequent flyer programme, but from a product standpoint, they are no different from LCCs, I agree. The seats towards the from on TAP planes are better since they have power, more legroom, and better seats with adjustable headrests, but those are usually sold for an extra fee, which makes sense. One thing I like about TAP (and also Iberia) is that they fly to Orly rather than CDG, which IMO is a much more convenient airport for flying to/from Paris.

    Thanks for sharing!

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