According to a statement from the airline, whose main shareholder is the Atlantic Gateway consortium made up of Brazilian/US businessman David Neeleman and Portuguese businessman Humberto Barbosa, last year TAP carried an additional 186,000 passengers to the US, of a total 472,000.

“This growth is the result of TAP’s strategic focus on the US market, with the launch, in June, of two new routes, New York/JFK and Boston, and an increase in the number of flights to destinations where it already operates, Newark and Miami,” TAP said, adding it also expected “strong growth” on those routes in 2017.

December was the airline’s best ever month, when it carried almost 900,000 passengers (26% more than in 2015).