TAP Air Portugal - A330-200 Business Class from Lisbon to Vienna!

Hello and welcome to another trip report. My days actually started in Porto in the north of Portugal

and I took an internal flight with TAP Air Portugal down to Lisbon. Now I've got two flights

in this itinerary, the second one off to Vienna on the A330 with TAP Air Portugal. I only had

about one hour to change planes in Lisbon which is why you can't see my face at the start of this

video. I simply didn't record an opening segment. I arrived in Lisbon at about 7am and that only gave

me about half an hour of useful time before it was time for me to head down to the gate

and re-board my second flight of the day. TAP used the main terminal, Terminal 1 at Lisbon

and it's really dated with very low ceilings and a lack of natural light. Most of the amenities are

located around the central atrium here and the TAP business class lounge is located at the top of

these escalators. I think it's definitely worth pointing out at the start of this video that while

TAP are a full-service airline, they have some extremely low premium fares across to North America

For example, right now you can fly between Copenhagen via Lisbon to points in North America

like Toronto and New York for around €600 one way in business class. These are some truly

remarkable fares. It's therefore not surprising that the TAP business lounge at Lisbon was very

crowded. There are an awful lot of flights leaving to North America in the morning. Aside from the fact that this lounge offers some excellent runway and apron views

there's very little to say about the lounge. It's neither brilliant nor terrible in any aspect

and I was only here for a very short time anyway. TAP are undergoing a period of revitalisation

taking on some brand new A330 900 Neos to replace some of the ancient A340s

which still operate to secondary destinations in Brazil and to places like Maputo in Mozambique

They're also taking on some brand new A321 aircraft, the long-range variety which they

hope to operate between Porto and Newark later in the year. Very quick whistle-stop tour for me today, only about 15 minutes because I have to get

to the gate. Short connection as I said earlier, let's go and find the aircraft

If I could give Terminal 1 at Lisbon a backhanded compliment it would be that it's so cramped

you don't have to walk far to any of the gates. priority boarding available for business class customers and for those holding

Star Alliance Gold membership. Our aircraft is actually at a remote stand

today so we're boarding via the bus and stairs and priority boarding basically

means that you get to go down to the holding area for the bus first. It's not really glamorous However I confess that I really like boarding by bus and stairs You get a nice drive across the tarmac and you get to get up close and personal with the aircraft before you board

Business class is located at the front of the aircraft and is in a curious 2-2-1 formation

This means that on certain seats on the right-hand side of the aircraft you get one of these

Captain Kirk throne seats. In these seats you will have no seat mate, double the table space

and double the storage space. I'll come to a seat tour a little after takeoff

You may well have seen last week's video about Iberia's A350 and you can guess what I'm going

to say again here. The cabin is extremely bland. It's a very good hard product but I don't really

get why there is so much grey everywhere. For a vibrant country I'm surprised the national airline

doesn't even include some red or green trim in their cabin in the national colours

Nonetheless, grey is at least a conservative choice and will be inoffensive to most people

Another benefit of having one of these throne seats is that you get three windows all to yourself

Thank you

You're probably wondering why TAP are using a large A330 aircraft between two European cities

This is generally done when there's an awful lot of cargo demand or passenger demand

are actually using an A330 on the London to Lisbon route later on this summer, so keep

an eye out for it. Today's flight to Vienna is 1,434 miles. It'll take us three hours and

ten minutes at an altitude of 39,000 feet. This seat has got to be one of the best I've

ever sat in for storage There a large storage compartment just to the left of you here This is actually so large it would probably take a small ladies handbag Elsewhere in the we have a hook here for the earphones which are only given out on long haul flights a lamp and there a USB charging point which you can see here

There's also a remote control for the in-flight entertainment. There's also a good amount of storage underneath the in-flight entertainment screen as you

can see here. Closer to the window there's yet another storage compartment, another substantial section on top

and beneath the life jacket stowage area there's also a place where you can stow your shoes

which is really handy if you're on a long-haul flight and you want to recline into a bed and go to sleep

On the same side and at shoulder height there's a literature pocket, which seems a little bit redundant because there's another one here on the aisle side

and that comes with a universal power socket and USB charger. As you would expect from any long-haul business class seat that's been newly installed

The seat is fully adjustable and customizable, including laying into a flat bed

I was able to stretch out fully and still have space between my toes and the bulkhead

I was glad to see that TAP did offer in-flight entertainment on this short route

Sometimes on European flights, airlines that fly their long-haul aircraft don't bother with getting a license to fly it on short-haul too

There was a pretty good selection of films and games, and of course there was a moving map, which is my favourite part of the in-flight entertainment anyway

This A330 is equipped with Wi-Fi but it was a little expensive for my taste so I decided

not to use it this time around. On short haul routes TAP prefer to offer a refreshing wipe instead of a hot towel service

that's preferred by some European carriers. The speed of the service was quite slow however, it was nearly an hour until we were served

breakfast after take off. Some people on my last video about Iberia didn't really understand what I meant about

having the food uncovered before it was presented to you. are almost always covered after they come from the galley, but all the cabin crew have to do is

remove the tops before they present it to you. It's just an awful lot more premium that way

I've flown a lot of European business class, in fact probably too much for my sanity

This breakfast that TAP gave me was rather small. This is a three-hour flight and most European

carriers will give you something much more substantial than this in business class. That being said, the actual quality of the food wasn't too bad, it's just

the portion sizes overall did smack a little bit of cost cutting

However, one of the things that definitely redeemed the catering service, at least in my eyes

was the fact they handed out chocolates straight after breakfast. There were two magazines in my literature pocket

The first is TAP's normal on-air magazine, and the second one, I couldn't tell if it was from TAP or not

but it was certainly a fairly decent lifestyle magazine, which was mostly in Portuguese with some translated into English I really want to visit Mozambique someday

Given the amazing transatlantic fares that I stated earlier in the video, I was really interested

to see TAP's hard product on the A330. I was particularly interested to see that they've even

got real flowers in the lavatories. That's something that some Asian carriers at the top

of their game don't even bother with. One of my flying superstitions is to always order a final

drink just before landing. In this case I had a delightful orange juice. Let me know if you have

any flying superstitions in the comments section below. For now let's enjoy a beautiful summer

approach into Vienna Austria. so on to my final thoughts about my journey with tap air portugal this was actually the first time

i'd ever flown with tap the journey cost me 215 pounds one way in business class that's around

250 euros now it was an awful lot cheaper for me to start my ticket from porto than from lisbon

even though i was traveling on the same aircraft to vienna that's just one of the vagaries of

airline pricing. It's always great to fly wide-body aircraft on short-haul routes and

as I said earlier, keep a lookout for this aircraft heading to London sometime soon

And that's it guys, welcome to Vienna in Austria, where it is really, really warm and I can feel

myself getting a tan, which is why I'm in the shade. I hope you enjoyed coming with me on that

trip report. It was a bit of a tale of two halves that particular trip. The soft product I didn't

think was particularly amazing especially the food and the speed of service however it was a large

aircraft just to bear in mind if you are looking at taking tap air portugal on the a330s transatlantic

down to south or north america or maybe down into africa as well there is a different service on

long haul it is much more substantial than that what i got was basically what you would get

on one of the airbus a31920 aircraft traveling through europe anyway i really enjoyed the hard

product i think that throne seat is one of the best seats in the house so i hope you enjoy the

trip report i'm going to wrap up now and i'll see you next time