Can anyone give advise on TAP Air Portugal or Italy Air

Please see the link below on Italy Air discussion.

RickSteves

Flown TAP several times with no problems. I think that the seat size and pitch was slightly better than U.S. Legacy carriers.

I can attest to flying TAP from Porto to Madrid.
Great experience. It was on time and comfortable. We would gladly fly with them again.

Me and my family used TAP to fly from Chicago to Lisbon. This was the worst travel experience we have ever had! They were extremely strict with the bags' weight. They attempted to charge us 50 euros for my bag being 200 grams over the limit. Our plane was, probably, from the 70s: no personal tvs, no entertainment, the only thing they had was 3 old tvs hanging at the beginning of the isles. Food was not good, neither was the service. This was a bad long long flight.

I have not flown either but did research them for upcoming trip to Italy. Both airlines adhere to 17lbs for carry on which means unless you are REALly good at packing light have to pay for luggage. I ultimately bought tickets on American which has more generous carry on allowances so worked out to be cheaper than Tap Portugal and Air Italy.

That said, I know people who have flown on both airlines and have been happy.

Thank you. Air Italy is having a very good sale right now. I'm leaning towards them but the reviews are not consistent and some just plain scare me. Really, really want to go back to my homeland this year, but don't want it to be a nightmare.

We recently booked TAP for Boston to Lisbon to Nice. I researched as well and it is confusing, but TAP's reviews didn't seem any worse than other airlines. Airline reviews are inherently biased to the negative for what normal person would write about enjoying 8 hours in a noisy cramped seat. What sold me was that TAP has brand new planes (at least on the BOS route) and they have a more spacious economy plus class seat that's not much more money.

good luck!

TAP has been a very good experience for me in several ways. Both Boston to Rome and JFK to Rome use the newer planes which have the fully lie flat seats in business class. I flew from Boston to Rome with a stop in Lisbon to change planes for a short flight to Rome. I liked the food and service, the FA was kind and attentive.
TAP also will fully refund the cost of an executive (business class ) flight even when I had to cancel only 6 hours before departure because of a death in immediate family.
Also, unlike US based airlines you can buy a one way ticket which is half the cost of a round trip ticket.
My method is to buy a business class ticket one way and use air miles business class one way with American or United on the return. So my actual cost is only the paid ticket on TAP which works out to 1400 round trip business class to Europe.

If you go by the rants people write online, you will never fly on any airline because at one time or another there will always be someone who has had a bad experience with an airline, and those who have bad experiences are the most likely to write a nasty review online.

Of course there is the option of traveling by boat, instead of flying. But that carries risks too. This boat was full of people who decided not to fly to Italy because of the bad reviews they read online about Alitalia airlines.

See this post regarding Air Italy shutting down Feb. 25
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/air-italy-shutting-down-operations-on-feb-25

Our plane was, probably, from the 70s

No western airline could afford to fly planes from the 70s today. Their long haul fleet is made up of A330s with an average age of 4.6 years and A321LRs with an average age of less than a year.