About TAP Air Portugal
TAP Portugal (Transportes Aéreos Portugueses) is the national airline of Portugal, based in Lisbon and a member of the Star Alliance. It operates to destinations in Europe, Africa and North, Central and South America.


History
The airline was founded on 14 March 1945, beginning commercial service on 19 September 1946 from Lisbon to Madrid under the name Transportes Aereos Portugueses (TAP). On 31 December 31 of that year, it began its Linha Aérea Imperial, a twelve-stop service including Luanda, Angola and Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique.
1947 saw the inauguration of its domestic service from Lisbon to Porto. Service to São Tomé and London began in 1949.
In 1989 service to Newark, New Jersey was introduced and in 1991, service to Berlin. Also in 1989 TAP became a publicly-traded company (Sociedade Anónima). In 1993, TAP began flying to Tel Aviv. In 1994, TAP began a code sharing arrangement with Delta Air Lines for north Atlantic service. This agreement was ended in 2005.
In 2005 TAP became the sixteenth member of the Star Alliance. TAP Air Portugal was rebranded as TAP Portugal in February 2005. It employs 9750 staff. TAP also ended its code sharing agreement with Delta Air Lines and began a new agreement with United Airlines as part of its membership in Star Alliance. Under this agreement United's code (UA) is placed on TAP's trans-atlantic flights and some African flights, and TAP's code (TP) is placed on United flights.
On November 6, 2006, TAP Portugal, a member of Star Alliance, signed a contract with Espírito Santo International for the acquisition of 99.81 percent of the regional airline Portugália. Whether Portugália will join Star Alliance as a regional member or merge its operations with TAP is still unclear.