TAP Air Portugal Launches New Direct Flight from Boston to Porto

TAP Air Portugal has launched a new direct flight connecting Boston's Logan International Airport to Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport in Porto, Portugal. The new flight debuted on Wednesday, May 14.

The flight between Boston and Porto will operate on Mondays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays now through Oct. 25. The flights will depart from Porto at 6 p.m. (1 p.m. Eastern) and arrive in Boston at 8:45 p.m. From the United States, flights will leave from Boston at 11:05 p.m. and enter Porto at 10:45 a.m. (5:45 a.m. Eastern).

While the flight is operating as a seasonal service only, TAP's Director for the Americas Carlos Antunes hopes the new offering from TAP will gain enough traffic to make it a year-round offering.

“We have an occupancy rate of 88% on the inaugural flight,” Antunes told O Jornal and The Herald News during the flight's debut celebration at Logan.

TAP currently has two daily nonstop flights from Boston to Lisbon. According to a Herald News report, TAP will add two other U.S. routes this year in recognition of the company's 80th anniversary.

On Friday, May 16, it added a new route from Lisbon to Los Angeles. LAX will become the company's eighth U.S. gateway. On Tuesday, June 3, it will debut service from Terceira, Azores, to San Francisco.

Antunes said TAP is optimistic about its overall load factor, a measurement the airline industry uses to determine the percentage of available seating capacity occupied with passengers.

“Eighty percent is a very important indicator of the financial health of these routes,” he said. “We want to find a good balance between the [number of] passengers coming from Europe to the U.S. and the ones going from here, so we don't become heavily subject to seasonality… this has been a very successful operation.”