TP232 IAD-LIS A330-2 14JUL19
Aircraft: CS-TOP
We were able to board in the first boarding group, of course. The boarding at IAD was divided into three groups: Preboarding, Premium Passengers, Group 1 and Group 2. The “Prebaording” group had your usual suspects: Families with “small children”, unaccompanied minors (there was a kid who was probably 17, looked like he was about 23, was very salty about having the “UM” card around his neck, and was probably more capable of finding his way to Lisbon than half the people in the boarding area, but I digress), and a handful of people that were unable to follow directions, and were redirected to their proper boarding area, to the credit of the contracted TAP staff.
On boarding, we discovered that the Business Cabin has 1-2-1/1-2-2 configuation.
Seat 5A/6C, on the side of the plane with “1”, so direct aisle access meant no climbing over your neighbor to get up. Seats are of the lie-flat variety, though are a bit narrow. At 6 feet tall, I barely fit head to toe, and while lying on my side, with knees slightly bent, was able to fit somewhat comfortably. While flat, the seats were not uber comfortable as beds, and no additional bedding was supplies, save for an adequate comforter/blanket, and adequate pillow. Pillow was not excessively large, but did the job.
Champagne served as departure toast, and wasn’t spectacular, but it WAS champagne.
Meal service seemed a bit pokey, especially for a 1040pm departure. Food was finally served around midnight, DC time. I had the beef dish, which was a bit tough, and the sauce was ordinary, but pleasant. My wife and son had the chicken which they said was “good”. Dessert, some sliced fruit, disappointed. While I was able to partake in a glass of the Douro Tinto which was featured on an insert, The appertif cart turned around and went the other way at my seat, denying me a glass of port.
I was able to sleep about 3 hours, somewhat broken. The blindfold was flimsy, and the amenity kit, while cute, had the usual lotions and lip balm, (Castelbel products) cool TAP socks, standard earplugs (which I hate, I slept with the NC headphones on) and aforementioned sleep mask. TAP continues their trend of changing up the kit, itself, featuring an artistic rendering of the Azores on this flight.
The NC headphones did the job, I had no need to pull mine out, though the FAs collected the headsets and turned off stuff about 20 min prior to landing. I had already managed to lock up my IFE while, ironically, checking out the in flight survey, but I was only in map mode after I woke up, though I do enjoy tracking my flights to wheels down.
Breakfast was pretty standard fare (breads, the same dessert fruit I saw a few hours before, yogurt, and a couple of cheeses and deli meats. The coffee was pretty top notch, for being standard brew, and TAP rises above it’s US counterparts significantly in the coffee department.
The crew was efficient and generally pleasant, though certainly not highly energetic. I believe the language barrier was tough on a few of them. They chattered a lot from their seats during takeoff. When it came time to deal with the “shoulder straps” for take off and landing, they found it easier to just put on and remove shoulder harnesses from passengers, rather than explain or show how. While it didn’t bother me, and didn’t seem to bother the other passengers, some of the areas they had to put their hands to help passengers with shoulder harnesses could well have ended up as viral videos in the US, with calls for the CEOs of major airlines to step down.
As seems standard with many European Airports, our Airbus parked about 25 miles from the terminal, and we were bused over. Major thumbs up on baggage delivery, as the belt began moving just moments after we got to it, and there really weren’t bad lines at Passport Control. Previous trips to LIS results in pretty severe baggage delays, so good on them there, too.
Overall, I would give this flight a 7/10. The aircraft was nice, quiet. The staff not unpleasant, the food was ok, and service was as expected. Given the low fares and good award availabilty that TAP often has, I would fly them again. They are still at least as good as the domestic international flights I have flown recently.