This Is The New And Improved TAP Air Portugal
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This Is The New And Improved TAP Air Portugal

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If you're headed to Europe, you might be tempted by the new and improved TAP Air Portugal. After all, it has low fares and the world's most attractive flight attendants.

It's true. The British magazine Monocle recently gave the airline an award for the "Most Handsome Crew." 

But looks aren't everything. What you might not know is that TAP Air Portugal is a new and improved airline, inside and out. It's hired 3,000 new employees since 2015. It has a new, customer-focused corporate culture. 

The planes? New, too. 

"It's a huge transformation," says Abilio Martins, the airline's chief marketing officer. 

TAP Air Portugal has reinvented itself

If this story sounds familiar, check your airline history. Other airlines have also tried to reinvent themselves. They bought new planes, made ambitious hires. But few managed to change the company's DNA. Passengers quickly realized that they were just putting a fresh coat of paint on an old, and at times dysfunctional, airline. 

Is TAP any different?

Martins says it is. And the results speak for themselves. He thumbs through the company's annual report, which seems to have a permanent place on his desk. TAP Air Portugal had its best year ever in 2019, with more than 17 million passengers carried, an increase of 8.2% over the previous year. And there are the glistening new planes, a total of 30 new-generation aircraft delivered last year. The average age of TAP's fleet is less than 4 years, compared with 15 years in 2018.

For him, the answer is clear: If you're flying to Europe, TAP is worth a try. It delivers a better product at a competitive price. 

In other words, it's a safe bet.

How TAP Air Portugal became a new airline

In terms of ownership structure, TAP is a new company. As part of a bailout plan with the European Central Bank, European Union and International Monetary Fund, the state-controlled airline agreed to privatize in 2011. Four years later, an American-Brazilian consortium led by David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue and the CEO of Brazil’s Azul, paid $11 million for a 61% stake in the Portuguese flag carrier.

Since then, the new owners have raised more than $300 million to create a more modern airline, with an emphasis on passenger satisfaction.

Among the changes:

  • New planes. TAP ordered dozens of new Airbus jets, such as the A330neo, A321neo and A320neo. The quieter, more fuel-efficient planes started arriving in 2018. The airline also retrofitted its existing Airbus fleet and retired its older aircraft.
  • New routes. The airline started new nonstop flights from Lisbon to San Francisco, Washington, and Chicago. It also improved its Northern Europe connections, adding Brussels, Lyon and Munich to service from Porto, Portugal. 
  • New service. TAP also reimagined its interiors, and upgraded meals, entertainment, and the cabin interiors to give it a more Portuguese flair. "We had to find our identity," says Jorge Picoto, a brand manager for the airline.

But TAP Air Portugal's managers acknowledge that it will take more than new planes and new staff to change the company's DNA. And if you flew on the Portuguese flag carrier before it privatized, you probably know — the DNA needed changing.

The old TAP was synonymous with second-rate service. It wasn't just old planes and "you-get-what-you-paid-for" service. Customer service was often nonexistent. Passengers complained. Phones went unanswered. And when you got through to a live person, the most common answer was a reflexive "não."

No two ways about it: TAP was a customer-service disaster.

Is the new TAP worth flying to Europe?

TAP Air Portugal couldn't turn itself into a new airline without new planes, of course. And it bought lots of them. Two years ago, it took delivery of the world’s first new-generation A330neo. Another 19 followed the next year, which allowed the Portuguese carrier to expand in several American markets with widebody jet service.

The A330neo is unlike any other flying experience. The "neo" stands for "new engine option," which for these jets means two unusually large Rolls Royce that are dramatically quieter and burn 20% less fuel than older engines. On a typical transatlantic flight, that saves TAP about $5,500. Martins says those efficiencies allow the airline to create a better customer experience.

Thanks to composite materials used in the aircraft's construction and new engines, the roar of the aircraft engines is all but gone. For an 11-hour flight from San Francisco to Lisbon, that can make the difference between arriving dead-dog tired and having plenty of energy for breakfast and a walk around town. 

A tour of TAP Air Portugal's maintenance facility underscores the airline's pride in — if not obsession with — its new fleet. The planes in the hangar look as if they just rolled off the assembly line in Toulouse. And for a good reason: Unlike other airlines, which service only the interiors, TAP assigns someone to wash each plane before returning it to duty.

"Everything is new here," says spokesman André Ferreira de Serpa Soares.

Fixing customer service at TAP Air Portugal

Some of the $300 million in new investment went straight into a spare, open room in Building 24 of TAP's headquarters that passengers never see. That's where you'll find the company's call center, where hundreds of TAP employees answer questions and solve problems every minute of the day.  

"We created a new app for customer service," explains Martins. "We've worked hard to decrease our call response times so that passengers don't have to wait."

TAP took a different approach to service, too. Instead of waiting for a problem and then creating a better response mechanism, it took a proactive approach. The company began sending emails to passengers that alerted them to everything from meal options to visa and vaccination requirements. By answering questions before passengers could articulate them, the airline saved countless employee hours — not to mention making passengers happier.

"Our focus is on solving everything before you get to the airport," says Martins.

But you have to spend time in the call center to get a real idea of what that means. TAP has 40 employees devoted to answering queries on its Facebook page. By comparison, most of the domestic carriers have a far smaller social media team to service a much larger audience. That's ensured it a massive following on social media and a "very responsive" Facebook stamp of approval.

The call center itself is a beehive of activity on a recent afternoon. Rui Alves, a supervisor at the TAP Air Portugal call center, says the airline has turned consumer complaints into a science. He motions to one area, which handles billing problems. Another deals with preflight consumer questions. Issues with flight disruptions are routed to a special back-office team to ensure that passengers are quickly compensated under EU rules.

"Most importantly," he says, "we make sure everything gets taken care of quickly."

The results of TAP Air Portugal's transformation

TAP didn't make any formal announcements about the customer service changes. And honestly, would anyone have paid attention to it? But managers knew that without service, the new planes and routes — and indeed all of the investment — would be meaningless.

Since I run a consumer advocacy organization that fields a lot of airline complaints, TAP has been on my radar for years. For an airline of its size, the Portuguese flag carrier generated a high number of complaints. 

Most of the problems were relatively minor. Passengers griped about indifferent crewmembers, high fees, and delays. But some were more serious. For example, TAP liked to take its time paying compensation claims under EC 261, the European consumer protection regulation.

But lately, the number of TAP cases has dropped precipitously. That left my advocacy team wondering: What's going on over there in Lisbon? 

You could credit the new planes or the expanded routes. Martins says it's all that, plus a commitment to customer service. TAP Air Portugal's customer satisfaction scores have soared as a result of the changes. It now answers 87% of its calls with two minutes. Its Net Promoter Score, which measures the willingness of customers to recommend the airline, doubled last year and is now above the industry average, according to Martins.

"It's all about the customer," he says. "It's all about better service."

Thanks to a fleet of new planes and new attitudes toward customer service, TAP is on course to becoming one of the top-rated airlines in Europe. Its corporate DNA sure looks different if you're a consumer — or a consumer advocate. 

But there's a lot of competition. Other international carriers have upped their customer service game recently, too. And customers are notoriously fickle, booking cheap fares without regard to cabin service or aircraft.

"Ah," adds Martins confidently, "but we have a secret weapon."

What's that?

"Portuguese wine."

Check out my website