The airline’s comments came as the Mayor of Porto and the head of the Porto Commercial Association (ACP) said recently that TAP’s shuttle service has caused “huge losses” for the region and is only so the capital can build a new airport and a new bridge.
A spokesperson for TAP said the route “is operating within expectations, and normally”, describing the domestic service as “an increasingly consistent product.”
TAP doubled its flights between Porto and Lisbon on 27 March to offer 18 daily return flights with hourly departures.
The boost coincided with the scrapping of four routes from Porto to European destinations Brussels, Milan, Barcelona and Rome, as well as flights from Lisbon to Gothenburg, Hannover, Zagreb, Budapest and Bucharest.
At the time the flights were cancelled, Porto Mayor Rui Moreira criticised the national flag-carrier’s strategy and accused it of “boycotting the region” and of “destroying” the northern city’s airport to build “a new airport and a new bridge” in Lisbon.
On its website Porto town hall published a news item in which it claimed that TAP slashed its weekly flights from Porto to Europe, Brazil and the USA by 74, at the same time that it reinforced its weekly flights between the city and Lisbon by 59.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Porto Commercial Association (ACP) echoed the Mayor’s views, saying: “The only market TAP sees in Porto is to feed Lisbon. Porto airport is disposable for TAP. We can all see perfectly well that the question has to do with a new airport and a new Tagus crossing in Lisbon”,
ACP chairman Nuno Botelho also warned that the region’s airport lost “74 weekly flights”.
“We still don’t understand whether TAP is public or private and the prime minister says nothing”, he charged.