Hofmann's recommendations

TAP Air: Impressive fleet renewal

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TAP Air Portugal is the world's first operator of the Airbus A330neo. But that's not all. By the end of 2019, 37 new aircraft will be taken over.

Connoisseur Circle spoke to CEO Antonoaldo Neves in Toulouse at the handover ceremony for the A330neo.

Connoisseur Circle: TAP Air Portugal is the world's first operator of the A330neo, the A330-900. Are you satisfied?
NEVES: Absolutely! This is the beginning of a sustainable fleet rejuvenation. We will receive a total of 37 new aircraft by the end of 2019, including the A321LR and A320neo. With regard to the A330neo, which will first be deployed on the route from Lisbon to Sao Paolo from December, a total of 15 A330neo will be flying with TAP by May 2019! We have ten A330neo on firm order and eleven more on lease. 19 A330neo will fly with TAP by 2020, initially replacing older A330s (there is no information yet on the delivery date for the remaining two A330neo, please note).

Connoisseur Circle: But this fleet renewal sounds very ambitious!
NEVES: It's great! We have a total of 90 aircraft, including TAP Express. And so many new aircraft are coming to us. This is a huge fleet renewal. But our capacity will not grow that much, it will only increase slightly. Because we have always grown by ten to 15 percent in recent years. Annually, mind you. By the end of 2019, 70 percent of our block hours will be completed by new aircraft. 90 percent of these new aircraft will replace older jets. I also expect enormous cost savings. Just one example: the A320neo is expected to save us 18 percent on fuel compared to our current A320ceo. However, this also means that the average age of our fleet will be reduced from around 15 years to around seven years by the end of 2019.

Connoisseur Circle: TAP uses Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport as a hub to North and South America, Africa and Europe. However, the airport's infrastructure is very much at its limit.--
NEVES: Yes, that's true. We are working very closely with all stakeholders in Lisbon to determine how best to increase the airport's capacity. And that is TAP's biggest challenge. Finding a way to grow at a constrained airport while delivering on-time performance.

(c) Kurt Hofmann