Out of the extra 302,475 passengers, TAP said that there were 182,331 more to Europe as a whole and 70.1 percent more to Spain and 139.5 percent more to Belgium. Further afield, there were 57.1 percent more passengers on the routes to Africa.
“The Load factor was also better compared with last year with an average occupancy rate of 85.4 percent across the network as a whole, a 12.4 percentage point increase compared with 2016”, the company said.
The Lisbon/Porto shuttle service carried 6,926 more passengers than the previous year, a 13.5 percent increase.