Portugália

Lisbon Portela

Portugalia Airlines, Portugalia Companhia Portuguesa de actually Transportes Aereos SAA or shortly PGA, is a Portuguese regional airline headquartered and based in Lisbon. It is a subsidiary of TAP Portugal, for which it operates regional and commuter flights.

History

Portugalia was founded in 1989 and took their operations in 1990, initially with a Fokker 100. In the first two years, the company posted a loss of $ 12 million, in 1993 it posted its first small profit. Predominantly owner was 84.35 % with the Portuguese Espírito Santo Financial Group. 1999 should Portugalia be sold to the SAirGroup, the parent company of Swissair. Because of antitrust and EU legal delays and later due to financial problems of Swissair it did not come to the final sale. A claim for damages of Espírito Santo Financial Group in the amount of 105 million euros against the liquidator of Swissair was rejected in court in 2003.

From 2001 to 2005 Portugalia by Skytrax the title " Best European Regional Airline" was awarded (Eng. best European regional airline) every year. In 2004, Portugalia promoted its ten millionth passenger.

On 27 November 2007, the takeover was of 99.836 % of Portugalia shares, agreed by the largest airline in the country, TAP Portugal. As part of this agreement with the Espírito Santo Financial Group TAP also took over the six percent interest Portugalia on ground handling providers Ground Force.

Flights Portugalia of today are performed in the course of acquisition by TAP only under their IDs and marketed only on TAP, Portugalia for example, has no own website more. However, as before the planes carry their independent paint and were not adapted to the brand image of TAP.

Destinations

Within Portugal Portugalia Airlines flies to Madeira, Lisbon, Porto Santo, Faro, São Miguel, Pico, Terceira Ilha do Faial and Porto in the name and on behalf of TAP Funchal. Europe include Brussels, Paris, Luxembourg and London destinations. Previously flew Portugalia Airlines also Germany and Switzerland to, for example, the Cologne / Bonn airport and the Euro Airport Basel- Mulhouse- Freiburg.

Fleet

As of August 2013 the fleet of Portugalia Airlines of 14 planes is with a mean age of 18.5 years:

• 8 Embraer ERJ 145, each with 49 seats
• 6 Fokker 100, each with 97 seats

In addition, the subsidiary brand PGA Express operates two Beechcraft 1900D with 19 seats.