Don’t Fly TAP – Air Portugal. Nice flight crews, unreliable planes, terrible app

Don't Fly TAP (Air Portugal).

But if you do fly TAP -- Pay attention to their App. 

It took four flights for me to get from Paris to New York on Veterans Day. That was not the day I planned to travel. And I did not book a terrible four-segment super-discount flight. 

Only two of the four flights flights actually took off—though I spent more time on the ground on the runway in Lisbon than the flight to get to Lisbon from Paris. 

I was supposed to fly from Paris to Newark changing planes in Lisbon on November 10. Two days before the flight, I got an email saying the flight was cancelled and I would be flying from Paris to Lisbon at 8am on November 11. At 12:10pm I would be flying to Newark. No options. Take it or leave it.

On November 11, I woke up at 5am. The flight from Paris to Lisbon was uneventful. We boarded the flight to America by 12:30pm then sat on the runway for more than 2 hours until we left the plane at 3pm for the long bus ride back to the terminal. In the terminal they herded all of us to a gate where three nice people from TAP processed two or three people in the first half hour. At this rate it would be Thanksgiving before we all got flights.

While waiting in line to get rebooked, I started talking to the couple in front of me: Iris and Jim. I was telling them that some of the angrier people were, like me, people who had a flight cancelled yesterday. We started talking about how other flights handle cancellations. 

If this were a United flight, our phones would have lit up before we reached the terminal with rebook options. TAP does not do that. I told them that when TAP cancelled my flight the day before, they rebooked me to an 8am departure the next day—they did not offer options. And with TAP, when you check in early, you can’t change anything until, as the agent on the phone told me, they release the reservation from their system. 

To show Iris and Jim what I meant, I hit the My Trips button in the TAP app. When I did, the app said I had been rebooked to JFK and I was leaving in one hour from Gate 41. 

“Oh Shit! I have a flight!” I said loudly. 

I checked. No TAP emails. No TAP messages. If I had not hit My Trips in the app, I would not have known and missed the flight. Iris and Jim did not have the phone app. They went to the TAP website. Nothing. 

Iris and Jim said, "Go to the gate!" I did. And made the flight. Which means the three gate agents who had us standing in Gate 46 for more than an hour had no idea their system was rebooking people. Again, no options. 

Flying into JFK at night instead of Newark means there is no way I can get home. By the time I landed and cleared customs at JFK and took the train to Penn Station New York, the last train from Philadelphia to Lancaster was already gone. 

So, I took NJ Transit to Princeton Junction to the cheapest hotel between NYC and Philadelphia and started catching up on all the sleep I lost getting home. 

I worked for a dot.com twenty years ago before apps existed and when e-commerce was new. In the late 90s and early 2000s, companies that did not have fully integrated systems sometimes had to take data from one system and enter it in another—let’s say communications and reservation management had separate systems. Connecting the two was called a “Sneaker Net.” People walked printouts from one part of the office to another. 

I signed up for every notification I could on the TAP app. I got one email and one text per flight. And the fact that their gate agents had no idea that automatic rebookings were happening says they really don’t understand their own system. United hits you up with options so fast that the angry crowd at the gate never forms. 

If I have not given you enough reasons to fly any other airline but TAP, consider the aircraft themselves. Both of the cancelled flights and the flight I eventually took to America were on Airbus A321 aircraft. They are narrow-body jets with 6-across seating and the only aisle in the middle. The 150 economy-class passengers share 3 toilets. The 200 economy passengers in an A330 (the more common transatlantic aircraft) share 6 toilets with two aisles and twice as many aisle seats. 

You could still choose TAP based on price, but in the sleepless world of transatlantic travel, I will tap a different airline.

A Long Path of Immigration from Japan to Paris

 

Alexi runs a small Japanese restaurant on a narrow street with ten Asian restaurants just off Boulevard Saint-Michel near Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  Although Alexi is ethnically Japanese, he does not speak Japanese. He is a native speaker of Russian who also speaks French and English.  

He came to Paris from Moscow twenty years ago with his mother when he was fifteen years old. He finished high school in Paris and went to university. He studied finance and worked in banking for a decade. Then several years ago, he decided to leave banking and open a restaurant. I have had Ramen, Donburi, and Curry at his restaurant. He is a really good cook. 

Soviet Flag, 1917-1923

In 1920, Alexi's great-grandparents left Japan and settled in Vladivostok. In the 1930s, they were sent from Vladivostok to Kazakstan. They were, in effect, pioneers. They had to build their own home and the town they lived in. Alexi's grandparents were born in Kazakstan. In the 1960s they moved to Moscow where Alexi's parents met and married.  

Soviet Flag 1930s to 1991

Alexi is about the same age as my daughters and his parents are both in their early 60s.  His mother still lives in Paris. His father still lives in Moscow. 

Russian Federation Flag

Alexi is worried for his father and about the war, but his father has no plans to leave.  

The path people take in life through different cultures at different times fascinates me.  Four generations of Alexi's family emigrated to very different cultures and set up a new life. Their path from Japan though Russia, Kazakstan, back to Russia and now to France is a saga of overcoming difficulties. 

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[Although I have lived in three countries outside of the US, it was with the Army on active duty in West Germany, Iraq and Kuwait. Even within the US, I have lived in seven states, but only in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania as a civilian. I lived in Colorado, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, and Kentucky on active duty with the military.]  

 

Passage du Grand Cerf: "Passages" in Paris are Small Malls with Small Stores Between Large Buildings

The long hallway and skylight in Passage du Grand Cerf.

In Paris, especially in the area of north of the Louvre toward Montmarte, are more than a dozen shopping areas called Passages. They are actually passages between buildings, sometimes straight, sometimes turning corners.  Some of Passages have high ceilings and skylights, some have ceilings no more than the height of a storefront.  

Small restaurants and food stands are in most of the Passages.  The typical business is a boutique selling clothes or shoes or jewelry or crafts.  

Here are the businesses I saw in Passage du Grand Cerf.

 

The Arts Tunnel--Jardin Tuilleries, Paris

 

Several years ago, Paris closed a tunnel for cars that is more than a mile long on the north bank of the Seine. The tunnel runs between Pont Neuf and Jardin Tuilleries. The city government opened the tunnel 21 July of this year to bicycle and pedestrian traffic. 

Before the tunnel opened artists were given forty-meter long stretches of concrete wall four meters high to paint--whatever. Street artists were also given forty-meter wall sections for their art. 

The result is hundreds of strange and beautiful and vivid works of art lining walls. My late afternoon walk through the tunnel was noisier than I expected because nearly all of the bicycles going though the tunnel were commuters on electric bikes. I counted five pedal bikes in a half hour.  Bikes were also far more numerous than pedestrians. 

Jardin Tuilerries  entrance at the west end of the tunnel

The ends of the tunnel are beautiful parts of the Paris landscape. Musee D'Orsay is on the south side of river opposite the Jardin Tuilleries entrance. Ile de Cite and Pont Neuf are at the east end of the tunnel. 

Pont Neuf at the east end of the tunnel

 

Visiting the Castles of Saint Louis (a tarnished saint) East and West of Paris

 

The tower of Chateau de Vincennes

Today I was in small cities with large castles east and west of Paris.  Ten kilometers to the east is Chateau de Vincennes. Twenty kilometers to the west of the City of Light  is Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.  

 

Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye 

Each of these castles was built or expanded during the life time of King Louis IX in the 13th Century.   

Saint Louis, King Louis IX, of France

Le Chateau de Vincennes covers several acres of walled grounds. A beautiful church is at the center of of the rectangular walled area opposite the main tower. 

The castle grounds include the palace of Anne of Austria who was Queen of France from 1615 to 1643.  She was married to Louis XIII. Her name is known to people who know little of France and its rulers because she is part of story of The Three Musketeers (Les Trois Mousquetaires) by Alexandre Dumas.  

Another resident of the castle, although not happy to be there, was the Maquis de Sade. He was imprisoned in the tower for seven years from 1777 to 1784. He would spend the rest of his life in various prisons and insane asylums until his death in 1814.

After visiting Vincennes, I went across Paris to the west end of the RER A train line to Saint-Germain-en-Laye.  I wanted to walk to the far end of the royal garden next to the castle where there is a circle of trees. 

Two views of the circle of trees

A corner of the royal garden

Two views of the 2-km walkway above the Seine

The view back to Paris from the wall on the east side of the royal garden

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Back to Saint Louis. He is the only French monarch to be made a saint. Louis IX ruled from 1226-70. Along with the Christian character of his reign, he robbed and persecuted Jews after he decided usury was wrong--the Jews suffering for a sin he permitted, then changed his mind about. He set up a show trial called the Disputation of Paris in which four rabbis defended the Talmud. They lost. Louis IX caused 24 wagonloads of Jewish holy books and other writings to be burned in Paris in 1242. This was long before printing, so all of the books were hand copied.  

Louis IX continued his persecution of Jews throughout his life. He is certainly not unique, or even unusual, as a king persecuting Jews, but sainthood makes him a persecutor and burner of holy books with a halo.

And speaking of sainthood, the beatification of Pope Pius XII is still on hold after the Vatican opened his archives in 2020. The complicity of Pius XII with the Nazis and his refusal to condemn the Holocaust during the entirety of World War II, make put him in the top ranks of Jew Haters. This book makes the evil of Pius XII very clear,