TAP Air Portugal's Carlos Antunes
TAP Air Portugal celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2025, and it recently soft-launched a revamped corporate program and added three new North American routes: Boston-Porto on May 14, Los Angeles-Lisbon on May 16, and San Francisco-Terceira, in the Azores, on June 3. The carrier's total North American passengers set a record in 2024. BTN senior transportation editor Donna M. Airoldi spoke with TAP director for the Americas Carlos Antunes and Fernanda Ottavio, manager for North America, to discuss the airline's growth plans, the relaunch of its corporate site and corporate travel trends. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
BTN: TAP Air Portugal's North American passengers in 2024 increased 8.9 percent year over year to 1.59 million, a record. The region also was the fastest-growing globally for the carrier. What contributed to that increase?
Carlos Antunes: 2024 was the first time we crossed the milestone of 1.5 million passengers on the U.S.A. routes, and TAP has been present in the U.S. for 56 years. This reflects not only the strong growth of frequencies and new destinations that we've seen in the last five, six years in North America but also demand growing. Portugal has become a serious destination. Our product departs from across the U.S., not only in flights, but also with codeshares. It's very suitable for leisure, but especially for corporate. And Portugal as a stopover, we've seen it growing since the pandemic.
TAP Air Portugal's Fernanda Ottavio
Fernanda Ottavio: I'll add that with the addition of the L.A. route, we now have eight gateways in the U.S. and 11 gateways in North America because we also have one in Mexico and two in Canada. And we have the three additional routes.
Antunes: Porto is doing very well. It's a strong investment from our side. We're keeping it out of Newark and adding the four times a week from Boston, so it's working out. Also, because Porto is the second-largest city in Portugal, we have a number of connections to outgoing destinations. It's an airport that is not as congested as our hub is, so it's where maybe we can grow the most in the coming years.
Ottavio: We [also] received confirmation that we are extending the Terceira operation into September. While it's not a corporate route, by any stretch, but it could be a bleisure route. As bleisure becomes more and more popular, this Terceira-San Francisco route can be a great extension. Indirectly, it's good news for the corporate market as well.
BTN: How much did business travel demand contribute to the decision for the other two routes you introduced this spring?
Ottavio: For L.A.-Lisbon, that's where the corporate would really weigh in heavily in that decision. We have a great new opportunity there when it comes to the entertainment industry. That is something that we've not really focused on in the past, because we were limited in our offer out of the West Coast, specifically out of Los Angeles, where we would have to rely on partners to get to our gateways. Having this flight in L.A. becomes a game-changer for us in that sector.
Antunes: From the data we have, Los Angeles the last few years has been the most important industrywide both for leisure and business and the most important underserved destination in the U.S. It was first in the list of priorities because of the mix with the entertainment industry, all the corporate that exists in the southern part of California, and then all the destinations we have in Europe. We believe it's going to be a route that will have a contribution more or less 50-50 from both ends of the route. So, a destination, not only an origin. … Now Porto out of Boston, there's a bigger contribution from business travelers because the northern part of Porto is home to several Portuguese industries, and also it provides access to the northern part of Spain, which is very industrialized.
Ottavio: [Porto] is very strong in certain industries—textiles, fashion, furniture, wine, but also finance, and one of the growing sectors is digital and IT services. Porto is really becoming a very strong corporate factor in the country.
BTN: What are your current key business routes?
Ottavio: It varies; it's pretty much all over. Even with our business-class travelers, I see that there are corporates flying through Lisbon to get to London. Part of it also has to do with the affordability of our business class. We see corporates that are traveling to Amsterdam, that are traveling to London, that are traveling to Frankfurt, and certainly for some of the secondary cities in Europe because we have an extensive network. Where no one [else] really flies nonstop from the U.S., we see corporates using our services to those secondary cities as well.
BTN: For North America, what is the current segment breakdown between leisure and business?
Antunes: We aren't able to exactly identify … but we can rely on distribution channels. With travel management companies, everyone is traveling for business. For us it's a little more than 20 percent. If we consider the passengers traveling for business purposes that are buying tickets on our website, on OTAs, etc., then it's more than 25 percent of our business for sure in the U.S. is corporate-related, which is very good. Though there's always room for improvement.
BTN: Let's talk about TAP's revamped corporate website. What is new?
Ottavio: In our new site, we will offer travel solutions for large corporations, which are along the lines of fare discounts, depending on the size, the volume of the corporation and of the travel. We'll offer travel solutions for meetings and conferences with fare discounts as well. And we'll also offer travel solutions for small and medium businesses, which will have no minimum spend requirement. And this works with cash credits. With every purchase, the corporation will accrue a cash credit.
Enrolling is very simple; it does not affect the traveler since the traveler will continue to earn their frequent-flyer miles. When joining the program, the company is assigned a unique corporate ID number, and they will use that code for all the company trips that are purchased. That's how the trips and the cash credit balances will be tracked. Then tickets can be purchased directly through TAP or through a travel agent. If the company already works with a travel agent, they can continue to do that. They just have to insert that company ID with every booking. And the cash credits apply to all the fare brands.
What varies is the percentage of the credit by brand. It's anywhere from half a percent for a discount brand, which is a no-frills kind of fare, to 5 percent for a top executive.
Antunes: One very interesting thing about the rebrand is that we've realized our customer sometimes doesn't know if it's small, big, or medium. It doesn't know our thresholds; it doesn't know how we deal with the corporate. On this new website, the customer, the travel manager, will be able to reply to a questionnaire, three or four questions. It's actually very simple. … Because we have, as Fern was saying, we have the SME program, which is a cashback type of program that the company earns points or miles while the customer, the passenger, still keeps earning [their] miles. Then we have the CIP, which is the corporate incentive program, which is a deal with a discount on certain routes. Then we have a version of those discounts for global or regional companies.
Sometimes the customer doesn't know what he wants, doesn't know what's going to be the best growth, doesn't know if he's going to be able to keep the targets that we offer on the bigger deals. The website will provide a very acute way of identifying what's the best corporate program to have at TAP.
BTN: What trends are you seeing from corporate customers?
Antunes: People are not asking for further discounts. It's still the best logical airfare. We need to be cheap to be able to be positioned. But it's more about something that we have on the corporate tools—the name change. If the traveler decides or has a problem or the company changes the person that's going to go to a certain destination for business, we just change the name [on the ticket]. We don't have to refund and reissue a new one closer to departure. They're asking for that kind of flexibility.
Ottavio: I don't think that's changed. I think that flexibility remains the most asked for from corporates. Then perks, things like Fast Track, things like being able to have access to the lounge if it's a new account, being able to status-match. Those are normally the most frequently asked from the corporations.
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