Just over two years after starting the route from Madeira to the USA, via New York, and last year to Boston, in the United States, and Toronto, in Canada, the airline SATA, through Azores Airlines, has just announced that it will discontinue these air connections.
The announcement was made yesterday in the Azores, but only today, through the paper edition of Açoriano Oriental, news arrived that “SATA is ending routes with a deficit of 12 to 15 million euros”, namely those “from Porto and Funchal to the United States of America and Canada”, with “this being one of the measures integrated in the Financial Sustainability Plan”, presented in Ponta Delgada.
The announcement was made by the president of Grupo SATA, Rui Coutinho, who was appointed precisely to begin the financial restructuring of the regional company. “When we arrived at the company in July 2024, we were faced with an operating plan for the summer that had been outlined and which turned out to be in deficit,” he said at the press conference.
In addition to direct connections between Porto and Madeira and the two North American cities and the Canadian city, the company also has flights via Ponta Delgada, which should continue. The manager assured that the end of direct connections will happen this year.
Although it is not specifically mentioned whether the company will cancel all these routes, that is, the three North American cities that connect with Madeira, and whether they will include the Azorean route, it should be remembered that the Madeira-New York operation for the entire year began on November 3, 2022, with the support of the Autonomous Region of Madeira, through the Madeira Promotion Association.
“In this context, cobranding campaigns and joint promotional actions will be developed in the United States of America, thus continuing and reinforcing all the work and efforts applied in the North American market”, the company recalled, in a financial effort that also had investment from Madeira and that now falls apart.
In the case of “direct flights between Toronto and Boston and Madeira Island”, they began in the IATA Summer of last year. “In addition to these direct flights, it continues to offer more connections, via Ponta Delgada, and maintains the weekly direct frequency, already operated in 2023, between New York and Madeira Island”.