TAP Air Portugal compensation: claiming for TAP delays, cancellations and missed connections

Which TAP entity flew you

TAP Air Portugal S.A. holds a Portuguese operating licence. Shorter domestic and European flights sold as TAP Express are operated by Portugália Airlines (NI), also Portuguese; a small number of regional flights have been wet-leased to other European carriers. Every one of these is an EU carrier, so your rights are the same whichever aircraft turned up — address the claim to TAP, which handles claims for the group.

How to claim from TAP

TAP takes compensation claims through the customer support section of flytap.com (contact form, choose the passenger-rights topic) and in writing. Submit one claim per booking, listing every passenger, the flight number, the date and the delay at your final destination, and quote Article 7 of Regulation 261/2004. TAP normally asks for the booking code and, for long-haul connections, the full itinerary; keep the automatic acknowledgement.

What TAP typically argues

• Lisbon hub congestion and ATC — Lisbon Airport runs close to capacity and Portuguese air-traffic-control staffing restrictions are common in summer. ATC restrictions can be extraordinary, but only for your specific flight and only if TAP shows what it did about them.
• Late inbound aircraft — TAP’s long-haul aircraft rotate through Lisbon; a late arrival from São Paulo delays the onward European sector. A knock-on delay is compensable unless the original cause was itself extraordinary (Wallentin-Hermann; the Commission’s 2016 guidelines).
• Technical problems — not extraordinary in principle (Wallentin-Hermann, van der Lans).
• Connections — for a single booking through Lisbon, the delay that counts is the arrival at your final destination (Folkerts), even if the first sector was on time.

Escalation

• ANAC (Autoridade Nacional da Aviação Civil) is Portugal’s enforcement body: complain there for flights departing Portugal after TAP refuses or stays silent. Portugal has no binding sector-specific ADR scheme; consumer arbitration centres can hear the dispute if TAP agrees.
• Flights departing another EU country: that country’s enforcement body (the LBA in Germany, DGAC in France, AESA in Spain).
• Court: the Portuguese julgados de paz for small claims, or the European Small Claims Procedure for cross-border claims up to €5,000.

Typical amounts

Lisbon–Madrid, Lisbon–Paris, Porto–Lisbon and most European sectors are under 1,500 km (€250). Lisbon–London and Lisbon–Dublin cross 1,500 km (€400). Lisbon to New York, Newark, São Paulo, Rio, Luanda or Maputo pays €600, halved to €300 when TAP re-routes you to arrive under 4 hours late.