TAP Air Portugal posted strong growth in 2018 after carrying a record number of passengers worldwide. The airline reported overall traffic increases across its main markets, driven by expanded capacity and rising demand on transatlantic and regional routes.
North American routes were a major contributor to the expansion. Traffic on routes to and from North America rose by 9.6 percent, adding roughly 70,000 passengers compared with 2017 and bringing the North America total to about 800,000 passengers. The route performance reflects TAP’s continued focus on transatlantic connectivity between Portugal and key North American cities.
Europe remains TAP’s largest market. In 2018, the airline carried an additional 932,000 passengers on European services, a 10.7 percent increase that pushed the European passenger total to nearly 10 million. Strong intra-European demand and frequent connections through TAP’s Lisbon hub supported this growth.
Africa was the fastest-growing region for TAP, with traffic up 11.3 percent as more than 1.1 million passengers traveled on African routes. Meanwhile, services between Portugal and Brazil attracted 1.7 million passengers, reflecting a 7.8 percent increase year over year and underlining the importance of South Atlantic links in TAP’s network.
Measured by capacity and demand, TAP expanded available seats by 12.3 percent while load factors showed demand growth of 9.6 percent. Those figures indicate the airline added significant seat capacity to meet rising passenger volumes across its network.
As Portugal’s flagship carrier, TAP operates an extensive network serving 84 destinations in 34 countries with around 2,500 weekly flights. The airline’s fleet includes 63 aircraft in the mainline TAP fleet and 17 additional aircraft operated by TAP Express, providing a mix of short-, medium- and long-haul services to support its route map.