TAP Air Portugal, the State run national flag carrier, announced a 137 million-euro loss for the first two quarters of 2011, representing an additional 53 million-euro loss over the same period in 2010.

According to TAP’s financial report released Friday, a 43% rising in fuel prices was to blame.

In spite of the loss in revenue, the report revealed that between January and June of 2011, TAP generated 917 million-euros in revenue, representing an increase of 8% over 2010.  In July, for the first time ever, the Portuguese airline exceeded the million mark in passenger traffic to a total of 1,025,923 for the month.

TAP Air Portugal is in the market to be sold as part of Portugal’s bailout deal with the European Union in May.

International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG), British Airways, German flag carrier Lufthansa, Latam, and the TAM/LAN alliance, have all expressed interest in acquiring the Portuguese national airline.

Recently TAP Air Portugal added new destinations to include Manchester, Dusseldorf, Athens, Vienna, Dubrovnik and Bordeaux (Europe); Porto Alegre (Brazil); Miami (USA), and Bamako, Accra and S. Vicente (Africa).

In the United States, currently TAP Air Portugal operates flights to Miami and Newark departing from Lisbon and Porto, with seven flights per week out of Lisbon, and three from Porto. During the winter, it operates five-times-weekly services from Lisbon and twice-weekly from Porto.

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