Review of TAP Express flight from Porto to Lisbon in Economy

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

This trip report's flight route between Porto and Lisbon will take a very short 35 mins at distance of 172mi/277km

introduction

 Welcome everyone to another trip report! After spending a few marvelous days in the absolute beautiful city Porto it was time to wrap things up and head back to Barcelona where I'll be taking my flight home back to the states. When looking for flights back from Porto to Barcelona there two nonstop options with Vueling and Ryanair. From what I could remember, Vueling was charging 75 USD and Ryanair 68 USD (both including carryon luggage). However, TAP was charging 41 USD (carryon luggage included) oneway with a stop over in Lisbon which made it very attractive, especially since this itinerary had a 4pm departure from Porto versus the late evening departures from the LCC's. Flying with TAP would also give me the opportunity to fly on an ultra short haul flight between OPO and LIS on their E190 aircraft. So without thinking twice I hopped on the offer fly with TAP again for my journey back to Barcelona.

PORTO, PORTUGAL

After having a bit of an unpleasant experience in my time Paris in terms of weather, I was completely shocked by how nice the weather was in Porto during my 5 day stay in the city. This was actually my first time visiting Porto which made me come back again a few months after in May 2023 and brought my mom with me to show off the beauty of the city.  

This was the perfect place for me to practice my cityscape photography ?.

During my stay in Porto the weather was quite nice for January with clear skies and temperatures around 50°F or 10°C. Quite warm for me as the weather back home in Utah was well below freezing so this was spring weather for me ?.

day of travel

The day has come to leave this wonderful city and I was ready to head over to Barcelona tonight. I began my trip here in São Bento station where I would take the easily accessible metro station to the airport.

I arrived at the airport which only took about 40 minutes from the city center.

After going up the escalators I made it up to the check-in hall which was very impressive.

My flight is TP 1949 with a scheduled departure time of 16:00

After confirming my flight I proceeded to security control. It was quite quick and I was airside in just 10 minutes. 

A view of the departures hall.

plane spotting

TP Airbus A320 departing for Luxembourg. Flight time: 2h 16m

Vueling Airbus A321 departing for Paris (ORY). Flight time: 1h 46m

Swiss Airbus A220-300 departing for Geneva. Flight time: 1h 57m

my aircraft

Here comes my Embraer E190 arriving from Lisbon.

Some information about my plane:
Flight number: TP 1949
Aircraft: Embraer E190LR
Registration: CS-TPO
Delivered: May 6, 2011
Age: 12.6 years

A view of the boarding gate area.

A few moments later it was time to board. Once again I had bought a basic fare but somehow got boarding group A. I was also very luck and got assigned a window seat on this flight ?. However when scanning my boarding pass the agent looked down at my 'American size' carryon luggage and told be that it was too big and needed to be checked. This has happened to me on pretty much every TP flight I've taken (even on larger aircraft). My carryon luggage has never been an issue for airlines when flying in the states and especially when flying UA (another star alliance member). I was fine with it and was glad that they didn't charge me 99 euros as they say they do for large carryon luggage while checking in.  

boarding

I was quite excited as this would be the shortest flight I've taken to date! Second place comes my flight with Air Europa from Porto to Madrid I took a few months after which you can find here.

My seat for this ultra short flight (21A)

These seats offer 30" of pitch, far better then on my previous TP flight from Paris to Porto on their A320 which only offered 28" pitch.

The tray table is a good size.

Iberia A320 arriving from Madrid. Flight time: 48m

Boarding is complete and today's flight loads are 100% full.

pushback/takeoff

Lufthansa Airbus A320neo departing for Frankfurt, Germany. Flight time: 2h 10m

Taking off on runway 35.

Until next time Porto!

Can you spot an airplane landing at the airport? ?

One last look of Porto and an incredible view of the iconic metal bridge of Luís l Bridge that crosses the Douro River.

Given such the short duration of the flight, there was no service.

We reached cruising altitude of 23,000ft.

seatback contents

Safety card.

BOB menu

Prices from what I saw were a little on the expensive side.

initial descent

We only stayed cruising altitude for 6 minutes until we began our initial descent into Lisbon.

Lisbon airport came into view and from the looks of it we'd be landing from the south.

Torre de Belém

We'd be landing on runway 03.

Welcome to Lisbon!

arrival at gate

We arrived at our gate 3 minutes ahead of schedule.

One last look at our E190, thanks for the safe ride!

This concludes the trip report, thanks for reading!