Review of TAP Air Portugal flight from Funchal to Porto in Economy

Hello and welcome onboard this report of our return flight from the island of Madeira, which was a bit epic. All the flight were reported on the french counterpart of the website and a limited number will be translated into english.

introduction

My partner's father had wanted to go to Madeira with his family for several years, and we offered to organize this trip for his 70th birthday. The whole close family, about 10 people, will therefore meet during the All Saints holidays on this small island in the middle of the Atlantic.
We are the only ones not starting the journey from Paris, the flight offer is not really convinient on Funchal either, especially since our return is planned for the IATA winter season, which further reduces the offer. In our case, no direct flight to Funchal will therefore be a flight with a stopover and the only airline offering correct time combinations and affordable prices, was the Portuguese major TAP.

It was possible to combine Low-cost flights with Easyjet or Ryanair but it was not so interesting in terms of price once the luggage was added.

Unfortunately 5 days before the flight I received an email from TAP, our return flight initially scheduled for Tuesday November 1st and simply canceled and TAP very generously offered us re-protection on the flight of Friday November 4th in the morning with a departure from Funchal at 4:30 am, when I saw the email I laughed, nervously but I laughed.
This will give me the opportunity to call the TAP call center (for a long hour). To simplify the problem, TAP has canceled its only rotation to Toulouse on Tuesday and the flights for Wednesday and Thursday are full for the weekend of November 1. Only solution to allow us to be on time at work, leaving the day before.
Again not so simple, there are still a couple of seats available on the LIS-TLS but the FNC-LIS flights are almost all full except for the 4:30 flight.

The outcome of the discussion with a friendly and persevering agent will prove fruitful so we are re-booked on an FNC-OPO-LIS-TLS flight which allows us to leave around 8:45 a.m. from Funchal and only lose a little more 24 hours of holidays (and one night in a hotel). The only risk, and not the least important, is that stopovers are very short in airports that are extremely disrupted by delays linked to air traffic management.

Which gives us the following routing:

This line, although the second busiest line from Madeira airport, has never been reported on our website.

At the level of the airlines operating between this city pair, there are no less than 4 competitors TAP and Easyjet which provides up to 3 daily flights by airline, Ryanair with a daily flight but also Transavia France which operate a stopover on is way to Paris Orly,

Sunrise in funchal

We reach Funchal airport with a magnificent sunrise.

Once again it's the family who drops us off in front of the airport, they will return back to France the same evening with a long night stopover in Porto.

 Funchal Airport was named after local football legend Cristiano Ronaldo and his portrait proudly adorns the airport facade.

After hugs with the family we join the departures area. Funchal airport is quite well sized for the traffic it receives, it must be said that it is also the only point of entry to the island. No ferry offers a connection with the mainland, the boats supplying the island being exclusively dedicated to freight.

 The departures board shows low-cost flights, charter flights and regular connections like BA as well as the multiple TAP flights for the 2 main cities Porto and Lisbon mix.

There are a few people at the TAP counters, but with 4 counters open the waiting time is acceptable. The automatic seat allocation had not really been kind with me when I checked in, not having any status to choose our seats for free, so we found ourselves in the bottom of the cabin and without a window seat.

For your information, TAP charges a minimum of €16 per seat, for plus seats (rows 1-15 of the cabin) count the trifle of €24.

So I would try to block the seats at the front of the cabin without paying for them or finishing the check-in which works and negotiate at the counters with the agent and playing on the fact that we have a short connection. Risky technique because at the beginning the agent will try to make me pay for them. The problem is that she did not have the hand to assign her same seats without paying which will be a problem on the Porto-Lisbon flight where she could not do everything just don't check in without paying! I will have to go and delete the paid seats on TAP website to unblock the system. Fortunately, we were lucky to find a friendly and patient agent!

Unfortunately once again no window for the Funchal-Porto flight, but I have more than one trick up my sleeve and, second tip, it is possible to modify the seat after check-in and between T-1h and T-0.45 all (unoccupied) seats become free to choose! Luckily the 6A and 6B that I had pre-selected are still free and now without supplement! Just need to receive the new BP via e-mail.

So here I am with the coveted window for takeoff from this famous airport without spending a single penny!

After this nice trick, I join the security, rather nice the view from the corridors of the airport. Security will be passed in a more than reasonable time with a somewhat speedy but friendly agent.
The sun continues to rise gradually in the sky, airport with a view of the ocean is quite nice…

Ending up in the “food court” and shops area of the airport, for the catering part you find a mix of local brands and international brands. As for the shops, it is rather the local specialties (Madeira wine, pastries) that take center stage with stratospheric prices compared to the rest of the island.

My girlfriend will have a tea at Starbucks which, it must be admitted, has a superb view of the Atlantic.

For my part, I go to the opposite side, because one of the particularities of Madeira airport is this large terrace which serves as a smoking area with undoubtedly one of the most beautiful views of the tarmac that you can have.

The TAP flight to Lisbon is in the starting blocks for departure, unfortunately it will have to wait a bit because of slots due to air traffic control in Lisbon, which does not sounds good for the rest of our trip.

 Same treatment for his neighbour, a Ryanair B737-800, also leaving for the Portuguese capital.

The plane that arrives is perfectly on time, and that's pretty good because it's our plane that's landing from Porto. As you can see the view of the movements on the runway is just perfect!

Sustainable follow-me at FNC.

And our aircraft comes to park right in front of me, which allows me to present CS-TNQ an Airbus A320 aged just under 14 during this flight. Having spent his entire career with TAP, he is one of the rare Airbus A320s to have received sharklets on retrofit .

 Small additional detail it bears the name José Régio, Portuguese writer of the 20th century.

Well there is not a lot of traffic either, it would be time to reach our door because our boarding begins, just go down one floor to reach the gates. This area is less lit and crowded but it also has the advantage of having a lot more seats and being a bit quieter.

Our flight will be gate 7, although in fact the counters at gates 6 and 8 will also be used to speed up the process.

In Funchal all the parking position are in contact and boarding is done either on foot or by paxbus to the delight of the avgeek that I am, especially since the airport staff are rather cool and don't care about the pictures.

The A320 for Lisbon has still not moved, they will finally leave with almost an hour of delay.

We will be the last to board. Fuselage shoot.

On board TAP A320

The welcome on board by our rather experienced crew will be polite and smiling.

We join our seats at row 6, these are “EconomyEXTRA” seats recognizable with their red colored head rest. These are the Recaro BL3530 model. Like BA on these Airbus A320neo, the cabin has been divided into 2. A part (rear) with low-cost type seats (Recaro SL3510 the same as Easyjet) and another with more than adequate seats for a European major.

On these seats the pitch is really good with 33 inches against a poor 28 "in the back.

And the seat also has some additional equipment, such as a phone/tablet holder, a power outlet, a slight recline, an adjustable headrest and a hook . So many advantages that are not found on the seats located in the rear part of the cabin which are the same as Easyjet.

The ceiling panel has probably been a modernized version because it displays the ban on the use of electronic devices.

As soon as we were installed on board, things started off rather badly, the cockpit announced a delay up to one hour due to the ATC slots . The pro-active crew will  serve cups with bottled water. Waiting which will be acceptable with a departure delayed of more than an half-hour.

The row 6 window is perfectly positioned, definitely a good choice! I see this Easyjet Airbus A320 arriving from Lisbon

We are pushing back, the parking place is immediately taken by this superb A321neo from TAP with the retro livery. Only regret of this routing the A321neo will once again pass under my nose, but hey I think I will have time to take it in the years to come Airbus selling it like hot cakes.

 We are passing next to this ATR72 of the Canarian airline Binter which provides shuttle flights to the neighboring island of Puerto Santo.

We continue our taxiing to the end of the runway. As can easily be seen in the photo, Funchal airport is more like an aircraft carrier than an airport platform with its elevated runway surrounded by the ocean on 3 of its sides.

On the other side, an imposing hill rises up, a real paradise for spotters and aviation enthousiast.

Our pilots push the 2 CFM56 engines to full power and we are quickly accerlerating on the short runway (2700m).

We therefore taking off quickly parallel to the main road of the island, VR1, which connects the entire southern part to Funchal with the help of tunnels and other spectacular bridges.

Then it's the climb with a superb view of the green valleys that make up the island, and you quickly understand the choice to build this track on "stilts" of concrete as nothing is flat on this bloody island.

The landing gear hasn't even had time to fully retract that it's a real break on the right to avoid the fly over the port town of Machico as well as not to get to close to Pico do Facho located practically in the axis of the landing strips.

We guess in the distance the port of Caniçal, the main harbour of the island of Madeira where most of the imports consumed on the island arrive.

We leave the island by its eastern end along the superb cliffs of the Ponta de São Lourenço where some photographs of the bonus are taken. A beautiful walk for amateurs in this area of ​​the island least subject to rain.

Then we continue our climb towards cruising altitude in a much more classic way, leaving Madeira Island behind us.

During take-off, all the passengers were looking outside by the window, a sign that the view was spectacular. Excellent performance for TP regarding the load factor, with only a few free seats.

We quickly arrive near the island of Porto Santo, the second largest island in the Madeira archipelago. Much flatter and arid than the main island, it is known for its large beach of white sand (visible in the photo)

However, this island has the longest runway in the archipelago with its 3000m. However the only regular connection scheduled all year round is the line to Funchal operated by Binter's ATR72s. There are also a few flights to mainland Europe in high season but the main purpose of this runway is to serves as an alternate for Funchal airport where weather conditions can sometimes prevent aircraft from landing…

It must even be regular because my car rental company even had the detailed procedure to follow in the event of a diversion in Puerto Santo…

After this wonderful flight over the East of Madeira, the weather will became cloudy over the Atlantic, not a big deal because apart from the blue there wasn't much to see.

Give me some time to look at the documentation in the seat pocket. Classic, with the mandatory safety card but also the BOB menu and its unattractive prices, even if, for once, the trolley will make a few stops to serve hot drinks.

The cruise will be very calm and our engine purrs normally, small detail on the sharklet in the colors of the Portuguese airline.

In the cabin the atmosphere is now quite calm and many passengers are sleepy, for my part it is report redaction as often on my flights ^^.

The ground is not yet in sight when our beginning of descent is announced by the crew, the engine speed decreases and our Airbus takes a slight nose-down pitch.

 Today's route, not much ground on the way, mostly salted water.

We are approaching the layer of clouds that seems to cover the northern Portuguese coast that morning.

And indeed under the layer of clouds the weather is humid to say the least with very localized rain showers.

 Then it comes to clear sky when we are on final for runway 17, so approach from the North.

landing on porto unstable weather

Smooth landing on the tarmac of the Francisco Sá Carneiro airport in Porto, the braking will also be soft, it must be said that the airport installations are located in the southern part of the field.

During our deceleration we are passing in front of this Ryanair Boeing 737-800 waiting for us to clear the runway before taking off (there is only one runway at OPO). A rather strange phenomena when the weather was rather nice north of the field, it was a good shower of rain that caught us at the other end of the runway, preventing any photos for taxiing on the same occasion.

Taxiing to our gate will not be long, shortly after the landing, jetbridge is connected and passengers begin to exit the aircraft in good order. For once this "EXTRA COMFORT" cabin really offers a much more pleasant product than the rear half of the cabin which is the copycat of what you will have on a low-cost airline.

 Cabin crew greet us with a smile as we take the long jetbridge connecting us to the terminal.

If most jetbridges are now branded by famous banks, oil or even car rental companies, I must admit that I was a little surprised by the publicity for the Porto airport jetbridges for "Renova" which is a toilet paper brand ^^! But according to their slogan it is the sexiest toilet paper on earth! (good to know !).

Whether it's KLM or Air France, the Embraer Erj190s will provide the connections to the HUBs of AMS and CDG.

Last view on my first Airbus A320 of the day, byebye "José"!

We arrive in the Porto airport arrival path, which is nothing more than a mezzanine above the baggage claim area. And instead of going down we take a small corridor corresponding to the path for connections. Even if we do not pass groundside we will have to clear a security check  (dedicated to connections) before being able to pass in the departure zone.

See you soon for the next flight of this routing !