Portugália

Infobox_Airline
airline=Portugália
logo=Portugalia logo.svg
logo_size=
fleet_size=16 (with PGA Express)
destinations=23
IATA=NI
ICAO=PGA
callsign=PORTUGALIA
parent=TAP Portugal
founded=1988
headquarters=Lisbon, Portugal
key_people= João Ribeiro da Fonseca (President)
hubs=Portela Airport
focus_cities=Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport
frequent_flyer=Victoria
lounge=
alliance=
website= http://www.flypga.com

Portugália (Companhia Portuguesa de Transportes Aereos SA) is a regional airline based in Lisbon, Portugal, a subsidiary of TAP Portugal. It operates scheduled international and domestic services from Lisbon and Porto, as well as European charter services. Its main base is Portela Airport, Lisbon with a hub at Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, Porto.cite news | title= Directory: World Airlines | work= Flight International | page= 63 | date= 2007-04-10]
TAP Portugal announced that all Portugália flights will be operated by Portugália aircraft but with TAP's flight code, so all flights will be TAP Portugal flights operated by Portugália. [ [http://www.presstur.com/site/news.asp?news=10667 Presstur] ]

History

The airline was established on 25 July 1988 as a joint-stock company, but had to wait two years before it could start services, due to a delay in air transport liberalization. It started operations on 7 July 1990 with a flight from Lisbon to Porto. It also flew from Lisbon to Faro that same day. It started operations with scheduled domestic and international charter flights, as scheduled international flights were not then permitted under Portuguese legislation. International scheduled flights started in June 1992 from Lisbon and Porto. On 6 November 2006, TAP and Portugalia's owners Grupo Espirito Santo, announced TAP's acquisition of 99.81% of Portugalia shares, subject to approval by the regulatory authorities. It has 750 employees (at March 2007). Portugalia was to join the SkyTeam Alliance in 2008, but since it was bought by Star Alliance member TAP Portugal, its not known if it will join Star Alliance as a regional member.

A subsidiary of Portugalia, PGA Express, operates services from Lisbon to A Coruña, Bilbao, Málaga and Pamplona.

For several years, Portugália was granted with the "Best Regional Airline in Europe" stamp and in 2005 was granted in second place in the category "Best Airline of Europe" by Skytrack.

Destinations

:"For list of destinations see: Portugália destinations"

Fleet

The Portugalia fleet includes the following aircraft (at June 2008) :

Incidents

On 11 August 2001 the left main landing gear of a Portugalia Fokker 100 aircraft collapsed during taxi at Lisbon Airport. No-one was injured.

References

External links

* [http://www.flypga.com/ Portugália website, now redirects to TAP Portugal website]