葡航歷史英文簡介
The airline was founded on 14 March 1945, beginning commercial service on 19 September 1946 from Lisbon to Madrid under the name Transportes Aéreos Portugueses (TAP). On 31 December of that year, it began its Linha Aérea Imperial, a twelve-stop service including Luanda, Angola and Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique.
1947 saw the inauguration of its domestic service from Lisbon to Porto. Service to São Tomé and London began in 1949.
In 1953, the airline became a private company and began service to Tangier and Casablanca.
The one millionth passenger flew on TAP on 19 June 1964, 18 years after the airline began operations. In 1969 service to New York via Santa Maria Island in the Azores began. Boston was added to the New York service the following year. In 1975, TAP was nationalized, becoming a public corporation (Empresa Pública).
TAP purchased the Boeing 747 during the 1970s, replacing their Boeing 707s; but the 747s were eventually sold due to lack of demand. They were replaced by Lockheed TriStars and Airbus A310s on long haul routes. By the late 1990s TAP had expanded its fleet by selling its older Boeing 727s and Boeing 737s and had replaced them with Airbus A319, A320 and A321. The TriStars were sold to Air Luxor and were replaced by more capable Airbus A340s giving TAP a large fleet of Airbus only aircraft.
In 1989 service to Newark, New Jersey was introduced and in 1991, service to Berlin. Also in 1989 TAP became a publicly-traded company (Sociedade Anónima). In 1993, TAP began flying to Tel Aviv. In 1994, TAP began a code sharing arrangement with Delta Air Lines for north Atlantic service. This agreement was ended in 2005.
1996 saw the introduction of service to Boston via Terceira Island in the Azores, the inauguration of service to Macau and the launch of TAP's Website. In 1997, service began to Punta Cana and Bangkok. Flights to Macau and Bangkok have since been discontinued.
In 2005 TAP became the sixteenth member of the Star Alliance. TAP Air Portugal was rebranded as TAP Portugal in February 2005. It employs 9750 staff. TAP also ended its code sharing agreement with Delta Air Lines and began a new agreement with United Airlines as part of its membership in Star Alliance. Under this agreement United's code (UA) is placed on TAP's trans-atlantic flights and some African flights, and TAP's code (TP) is placed on United flights.
In 2006, it is planning to start codesharing with US Airways on all routes between Portugal and the USA and connection services out of Newark and Philadelphia.
On November 6, 2006, TAP Portugal, a member of Star Alliance, signed a contract with Espírito Santo International for the acquisition of 99.81 percent of the regional airline Portugália. Whether Portugália will join Star Alliance as a regional member or merge its operations with TAP is still unclear.
TAP Portugal has shareholdings in Air Macau (15%). TAP had in an airline from São Tomé and Príncipe, but the airline was dismantled.