TAP Portugal (Lisbon) will accelerate its PGA Portugalia Airlines (Lisbon) fleet renewal plans in the wake of a disastrous summer operational schedule which saw 543 cancelled flights during the period June to August; a 20% increase on the same period last year.
TAP Portugal president Fernando Pinto told a parliamentary inquest last week that 227 cancellations in June and July were due to a lack of crew while 120 were for technical reasons - the majority of which occurred in the Portugalia fleet. Pinto said other factors that had impacted operations included the late arrival of new aircraft in addition to an August pilot strike.
The airline has since hired an external auditor to assess the technical problems encountered in the summer, he added.
Earlier this year, TAP announced plans to begin replacing Portugalia's fleet of six Fokker 100s with E190s as early as next year. TAP has already phased out its subsidiary's fleet of Beech 1900Ds.
