If certain travel trends emerged over the last two years, the entire country of Portugal could be classified as one.
Portuguese customs data shows that while the Iberian country saw just under 585,000 visitors from the U.S. in 2022, that number nearly doubled to exceed one million before the year has even ended in 2024.
After the country introduced its visa for digital nomads in October 2022, thousands more foreigners arrived in Portugal for extended stays over the last year.
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Want to go to Portugal next summer? There are a lot of new flying options
A number of both American and Portuguese airlines have responded to this spike in interest with new flights.
Last summer, United Airlines (UAL) launched new routes to Faro and Ponta Delgada from Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) while Portuguese regional carrier Azores Airlines started running flights to the island of Madeira from New York, Boston and Toronto.
The latest airline to increase flight frequency between Portugal and the U.S. is the country’s flagship carrier TAP Air Portugal. The new routes announced by the airline include Los Angeles to Lisbon, Boston to Porto and San Francisco and Terceira on the Azores.
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The Boston-Porto flight will launch on May 14, 2025 and run four times a week on an Airbus A321LR (EADSF) while the Los Angeles-Lisbon and San Francisco-Terceira flights will be run on Airbus A330-900neo planes.
Targeting the growing numbers of tourists interested in visiting the off-mainland Portuguese Azores islands, the latter route will run just once a week on Tuesday. It will launch on June 3, 2025 and run seasonally until Aug. 26.
Related: There is now a direct flight to this tropical European island from the U.S.
‘Los Angeles to become TAP’s eighth U.S. gateway’
The other two TAP flights are also seasonal flights that will be retired for the year by the end of October.
“We’re tremendously excited to announce new service from Logan to Porto, LAX to Lisbon and SFO to the Azores,” Carlos Antunes, TAP’s director for the Americas, said in a statement. “Los Angeles will become TAP’s eighth U.S. gateway and, of course, all three new routes include our popular Portugal Stopover program where you can enjoy up to 10 days in Portugal en route to any of our destinations in Europe or on the way home.”
The latter refers to the stopover program mirroring the model pioneered by airlines like Icelandair. Visitors who use TAP to transfer to another country in Europe can book their flight so that they a few days and discounted hotel stay in Portugal without having to pay to change their ticket.
To promote the new routes, TAP is offering discounted fares of $529 for the Boston-Porto flight and $679 for the Los Angeles-Lisbon ones for those who can commit to travel in 2025 by Dec. 17. Both are round-trip and can be scored for routes leaving throughout the week.
Due to the specialized set of travelers it is meant to serve, the Terceira flight is not part of the promotion. It is TAP’s first transatlantic flight to the Azores since the Boston to Ponta Delgada route was discontinued last year.
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