PGA Portugalia Airlines

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PGA used to provide pillows for whoever asked for them, but as in many other things, lately, they do not provide this service anymore.

They have introduced the pillows again. This time only for chidren and parents with babies. That's a start!

At the beginning of the flight, they offer newspapers. These cover a good range of portuguese and english newspapers, but be ware, if you are sitting at ...
...no newspapers to choose from. They also provide a couple of magazines. One of them is very interesting, providing information about flights that this company provides and information about places you can go if taking these flights. This magasine has a good interesting description of all sorts of different places you don't know about. It gives you ideas of where to go and what to do, and they are generally good advice. If you are going on a holiday, ... more

I have been travelling with this company for 6 years, at least 6 times a year and they have only delayed my bagage once!
That is pretty good.

However, they have been deteriorating over time.

Flights

When I first started to fly with PGA, it was because they were the only company that did direct flights from Manchester to Porto, plus they were quite affordable at aropunf GBP130. Now their prices are much higher and they don't do these direct flights anymore! They fly to Lisbon first, where you have to change flight and then to Porto. This delays the flight by 1 whole hour. When before it would take 2 hours and a half to get to Porto, now it takes more than 3 and a half. I'm really not sure why I still fly with them... There are alternatives like BA, now. The ticket prices are about the same, the airplanes and food are much better. You also have one stop with BA and that is in London. The only inconvenience with this is that sometimes you have to stay hours, in you London, so you waste a whole day.

Guess what? Now you are most likely to not have a connection within an hour. Let me explain. I said earlier that normally you would go to Lisbon, wait about an hour and then you fly to Porto. Well, that is not the case anymore. They have changed the flight times. Not only do they live Manchester extremely early, meaning I get no train or bus transport, but when you get to Lisbon, you have to wait till the evening to get in the connection flight to Porto. How annoying! Can't they do anything right anymore?

The other change is that they have changed the craft they use for these flights, to a much smaller, and honestly, claustrophobic craft (2 seats one side, one seat the other side). This means that, first you can't really take any luggage to the aircraft as there is no space for it, and secondly, you better book your flight 2 or more months in advance or you won't be going anywhere. They used to be very flexible and you could book your flight almost up to the date (obviously paying more the later you booked it), as long as it wasn't on christmas or easter, when they were always fully booked for a long time. Now there is no flexibility. And it's not as if the flights weren't completely full before, because they were, so why did they change crafts?

On Board food

They used to be very polite and helpful, with a wide range of good food, lately they will serve you badly cooked vegetables (if you are lucky) with flavourless meat or fish. Dessert tends to be nice, though.
It must be said, that they do supply as many drinks as you might want, both alcoholic and not. If you ask for a drink before or after they serve you your meal, they will give you a drink without any problems.
They do offer a vegetarian option, however you really do not want to choose this. They will give you baby carrots and peas, that is it! If only they would taste of something. I do not know how, but they completly take the taste of food.

Ah! One good thing came out of the latest changes. They have reintroduced Haggen Daz! Yes you read well. Haggen Daz! The chocolate one. On the connection flight from Lisbon to Porto, a journey of about 30 minutes, they will give a small pot of Hagen Daz ice cream. Yummy!

Extras

PGA used to provide pillows for whoever asked for them, but as in many other things, lately, they do not provide this service anymore.

They have introduced the pillows again. This time only for chidren and parents with babies. That's a start!

At the beginning of the flight, they offer newspapers. These cover a good range of portuguese and english newspapers, but be ware, if you are sitting at the tail of the airplaine, most likely you will get no newspapers to choose from. They also provide a couple of magazines. One of them is very interesting, providing information about flights that this company provides and information about places you can go if taking these flights. This magasine has a good interesting description of all sorts of different places you don't know about. It gives you ideas of where to go and what to do, and they are generally good advice. If you are going on a holiday, it is worth looking at this in-flight magasine. And you can take home with you, so you won't forget those 'interesting ideas'!

Crew

The cabin crew is not very helpful or nice anymore. It is almost like a 'no-frills' airline. The airplaines are old and tatty. The seats are composed of ripped old material and many of the tables do not work properly.

Punctuality

They do tend to be on time, but in my opinion this is not enough for the prices they charge!
If you travel in business class, you won't find much difference, it's not worth your money, however, the crew are much more helpful in this class (not very fair!).

Loyalty Program

The company has a loyalty program, SkyClub, which is quite good. You get points everytime you travel with them and if you use BP garages in Protugal and some portuguese mobile companies. Some hotels are also involved in this (check out the leaflet at check-ins and flights) as well as car renting companies. The problem is that mostly, english companies are not involved, so you can't get points at home. But if you travel with them for at least 3 times a year (return flights). By the end of your first year, sometimes second year (depending on the flight), you should have enough points for a free flight (excluding airport tax). If you don't want a free flight you can always book yourself a hotel. The options are all explained in the leaflet.
There are to levels for being a memeber of the program, in the first level you get a blue credit card looking card, everytime you book a flight and do a check you give this card to the cheack-in personnel (much like common rewards cards) and points are accumulated. With this card you get priority in waiting lists.
Once you get to 20.000 accumulated points (miles) you get a silver card. This gives you access to private lounges at airport, still gives you priority in waiting lists and allows you to take an extra 20 kg of luggage (on top of you basic 20kg).

Dealing with trouble

If the airline does come to any trouble (like loosing the bagage, or being late) it does not deal with it properly. You wil get no explanation for delays and compensations for lost baggages are ridiculus.
I am not aware of any services they may offer for disabled or extra large people as i have not needed this sevice to date, however I have seen crew pushing wheelchairs and generally helping out when this situations arise.

Tickets Prices

A flight from Manchester to Porto, with one stop in Lisbon, will cost you about 200GBP. Flights to Lisbon, direct are about the same price. Business class tickets start from 300GBP.You can book directly with the airline, from Manchester Airport site or any other travel agency.
From time to time, they do haveboffers on, mostly, for stays of 1 week, going and coming back on tuesday. You can get a flight with these offers for about GBP150.

Destinations

They do offer other destinations, however, as I have not flown with them for any other place, I can't comment on these. Here are all the destination they offer flights to.

Lisbon - Porto - Faro - Funchal - Madrid - Barcelona

Bilbao - Valencia - Turin - Basel / Mulhouse

Stuttgart - Cologne / Bonn - Casablanca - Manchester - Milan - Nice - Lyon

Marseille - Bordeaux - Toulouse - Berlin - Bologne - Brussels - Málaga

La Corunha - Paris

I can't comment on prices for these destinations either.

Contact

Here's some contact numbers.
Call center: 21 842 55 59 / 60 / 61 / 62
Email : reservas@pga.pt
Airport Sales Counters: Lisboa 21 00 58 521 /22 Porto 22 00 29 640/1/2/3/4
Reservations - UK : Tel 0870 7550 0 25
Reservations - Spain : Tel 902 100 145
Reservations - France : Tel 0803 083 818
Sky Club: 21 842 5572 /73 ou 21 842 5629/31
Email : ff@pga.pt
Customer Service: 21 00 58 544
Email : cs@pga.pt

They have won an award, attributed by skytrax, for best european regional airline for some consecutive years, so they must be doing something right, it's a shame i can't find it...

If you are looking for a simple way to travel, i suppose they are effective. 

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