TAP launched operations to Manaus and Belem on June 3

TAP started operations to two new Brazilian cities – Manaus, Amazonia and Belem, Para – thus launching the first two destinations of the 11 new ones to be inaugurated during this Summer. Therefore, the company enhances its operations to Brazil, now serving 12 different destinations in the country and further reinforcing its positioning as the world’s leading airline to Brazil.

This operation was launched with triangular flights Lisbon – Manaus – Belem – Lisbon, with three weekly frequencies, every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday, thus allowing TAP to enter, for the first time, into Northern Brazil, which is a region with great potential for tourism development and still with a very limited offer of international flights.

Thus, flights yesterday started, depart Lisbon at 09:35, arrive in Manaus at 13:45 and proceed one hour later to Belem, where they land at 17h45. From Belem, flights then depart at 19:15 and arrive in Lisbon at 06:45 (next morning).

TAP inaugural flight Lisbon – Manaus – Belem was operated with an Airbus A330, the CS – TON, “João XXI”, with a three member cockpit crew: Captain Silva Coelho, the company’s Flight Operations Director, Captain Abreu Oliveira and the co-pilot Rafael Sequeira. With 216 passengers on board, amongst which some representatives from Portugal Tourism Board along with representatives from the Brazilian States of Amazonas and Para, the flight’s cabin crew was composed of nine members, headed by the chief purser Helder Santos.

With the inauguration of this new route, which so far counts more than 23,200 bookings, TAP increases its offer to Brazil to 81 weekly frequencies, now serving 12 different gateways – Manaus, Belem, Natal, Fortaleza, Recife, Salvador, Brasilia, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Campinas and Porto Alegre – and thereby covering all geographical regions in Brazil. In 2013, TAP carried some 1,541,723 passengers to Brazil in the whole, with an average load-factor of 84.2 per cent.