NEVER AGAIN What follows may seem made up, but it is completely accurate. Thursday, March 29, leave Boston for Seville connecting through Lisbon: Flight leaves over an hour late due to “mechanical difficulties”. This means a lot of stress hoping we make the connection, but we get lucky because there is no line at passport control and we get to the gate a good 30 minutes before the flight. This doesn’t matter because 40 minutes later, we are all informed that this flight is canceled because of “mechanical difficulties”. Now comes the fun: The next flight to Seville is over 13 hours later. We are offered this flight “because we have premium seats” (their words). I asked the woman what will happen if I decide not to take the flight and simply to get our bags and drive. She says, “If you do that, just tell us, we will get your bags out and credit you and then you go”. While we did decide to hire a driver and leave earlier, thus arriving in Lisbon approximately 9 hours earlier than we would have, what she told us turned out to be wholly inaccurate. However, this is a discussion for another time regarding the dispute to get the money for the tickets back and the fact that they tried to cancel our return flight. Returning to Boston on Sunday, April 7: We all board the plane from Seville to Lisbon and then sit there for over an hour, as the extremely polite captain explains that there is “a mechanical difficulty”. As a result of this, we miss our connecting flight from Lisbon to Boston, as we sit on the runway in Lisbon for 17 minutes waiting for a bus to arrive. We are put on the next flight from Lisbon to Boston, almost 5 hours later. It will come as no surprise that when we board the later flight from Lisbon to Boston, boarding is delayed by 40 minutes due to “mechanical difficulties”. We finally arrive in Boston and wait at the luggage carousel for almost an hour. An attendant tells us that the biggest problem is that TAP is having trouble getting the luggage off the airplane due to a “mechanical difficulty”. There is no doubt that I would rather wait for a mechanical difficulty to be resolved than never arrive at my planned destination. However, the fact that four airplanes as well as luggage retrieval all demonstrated “mechanical difficulties” leads me to wonder why I would fly such an airline again. I am not expecting the type of service I get from top tier airlines like Lufthansa, Swiss, Cathay, British, United, etc. when flying overseas. However, I do think that even if TAP is evidently a second tier airline, it is reasonable to expect some of their planes to take off on time without “mechanical difficulties”. The only reason I can think of to fly TAP again: If I have to do business in Lisbon and they are the only airline with a direct flight from Boston. Otherwise, no thanks.…