Questions and Answers

Hello,

I thought that people may be interested in the experience that myself and three friends recently had flying TAP Air Portugal from London (and one of us from Zurich) to Dakar.

Every flight was delayed, I understand that that happens sometimes, but in each case no one was told anything such as the reason for the delay, or the expected take off time. In each case we were left in the dark. We all missed connections and what should have taken 8 hours for a hotel journey took over 35 hours in both directions. On the way down to Dakar one of us missed the onwards connection in Lisbon and had to pay for a hotel as all those that TAP had an agreement with were fully booked. The next day we were told that only €60 of the €150 would be reimbursed.

Our flight from DSS to LIS was cancelled after we boarded, no information was given, and no TAP staff were present. The crew of the flight made a hasty retreat and were not seen again until the next day. The entire plane load of passengers, including babies and elderly (and in one case, sick and elderly) people were forced to sleep on the airport floor, with no offers of food or water. The Senegalese ground crew were very friendly but unable to help or advise us. The next morning by pure luck some passengers reported a bus was leaving for a hotel where we could rest in the day. Whilst there we spoke to airline staff on the phone who accused us of lying and that the flight had operated as planned. They also said that it was impossible that we had to sleep in the airport. After being awake for 30 hours at this point this was incredibly rude to hear. The next day we boarded the rescheduled flight which was again delayed by 2 hours. The crew didn’t have a clue what was going on and kept on telling us the flight duration was 5 hours instead of 3.5. Even the captain did not seem to know the length of the flight. The crew were rude, and caused one young mother to break into tears. Arrival in Lisbon was chaotic and many people missed onward connections. The line at the transfer desk was so long that it took over 2 hours to get rebooked on another flight. In the end we spent over 30 hours travelling each way. I know people say “I won’t fly with an airline” a lot, but I will gladly pay the extra money to fly with Iberia next time I go to Dakar. I read some other negative experiences of TAP Portugal online and thought you may be interested to hear our story. We are trying to claim EU compensation from the airline.