Azores Airlines' Intriguing Porto Transatlantic Flights

@Ben: “based in the Azores (some of the Atlantic islands that belong to the Azores).” Don’t you mean islands that belong to Portugal.

@ OCTinPHL -- Fixed, thank you! Sorry, it has been a VERY long day traveling with an infant. *Gulp*

I think the major limitation to further growth in the Azores is the capacity constraint of the islands themselves, more so than air travel per se. When I visited a couple years ago, it was already straining to handle shoulder season visitors, and numbers have gone up since then. So, I would interpret this as a logical move, in as much as there is also plenty of demand to Portugal, with less limitation.

Went to Porto this June for a week, and I never have a need to go back. The throngs and throngs of American tourists was insane. It felt worst than Rome in July! And imagine having to walk up hill for 30 minutes to go to the grocery store, or the subway, or back to your apartment. No matter where they hell you go in Porto, it’s up hill. This is one of those towns where your grandfather saying “I had to walk 30 min to school back in the day, and it was uphill both ways!” Actually might be accurate.
And frankly, this town is just ok. It’s basically how parts of Italy were 30 years ago; a run down town in desperate need for money and investment (and the only place you see anything with historical charm or new development is catering to solely to tourists. And it feels like it’s just catering to tourists.

Went to Porto this June for a week, and I never have a need to go back. The throngs and throngs of American tourists was insane. It felt worst than Rome in July! And imagine having to walk up hill for 30 minutes to go to the grocery store, or the subway, or back to your apartment. No matter where they hell you go in Porto, it’s up hill. This is one of those towns where your grandfather saying “I had to walk 30 min to school back in the day, and it was uphill both ways!” Actually might be accurate.
And frankly, this town is just ok. It’s basically how parts of Italy were 30 years ago; a run down town in desperate need for money and investment (and the only place you see anything with historical charm or new development is catering to solely to tourists. And it feels like it’s just catering to tourists…. Oh wait! Maybe it is perfect for my fellow Americans! Ha 🙂

Do they do free stop overs like TAP? Could be a fun way to see Portugal and Azores with a direct backs cross the Atlantic in one direction

how is Azores Airlines coach class and the airline overall? most reviews online are a few years old and were not very good. the Binter Canarias website shows you can fly Azores to Ponta Delgada then hook up with binter the canary islands. I am looking for options for amanda and i to get to the canaries without going through madrid. to mix it up a little.

Correct me if i'm wrong but don't they fly a330 and a321 plus two dash 8 types??

So, in the past three days Ben has questioned Breeze, Jet Blue and BemudaAir's business models yet this makes sense?

God awful westbound departure times. Count me out. I'll chng in LIS, obrigado.

No, they don't fly the A330. Azores Airlines (previously SATA International) currently operate two A320-200's and five A321neo's.

SATA Air Acores operates two Dash-8-200's and five Dash-8-Q400's.

I spent three weeks with SATA in Ponta Delgada in June, at their Network Operations center and airport operations. They're a great little airline. Really nice people, decent onboard service.

LOL Portugal has always been a popular tourist destination. It just wasn’t on the radar of Americans until about four years ago. Brit’s have been flocking to Portugal for decades.

“The whole country of Portugal has become a much more popular tourist destination in recent years” - erm, I think what you mean is “for Americans”, tourism has been a significant percentage of Portugal’s GDP and it has been a major tourism destination for decades…

Azores Airlines actually used to fly between BOS and LIS (before TAP started their service) but has since ended this service

The flight times are poor considering a lot of people will not be flying from there. Also many places from Europe to the US so they will need to get their price down if they really want it to work.

They’re currently leasing an A332 from PlusUltra to fly to Boston and Toronto from Terceira (at least in Boston’s case it’s also a daytime flight in both directions) but no longer have their own A330s

Frankly, in the case of Azeres it is 100% O/D traffic, since they have no feeder traffic on either side of the ocean (except perhaps via TP). The market they are having in mind is the "ethnic" market, i.e. portuguese migrants. That also explains the once per week schedule, which makes not much sense for individualistic tourists, let alone for business travel.

I love these daytime flights across the Atlantic Ocean, they affect me much less than the overnight ones. But with the limited number of services it would be quite a coincidence that they fit into my schedule.

I'm more inclined to give the AT (Royal Air Maroc) daytime services from JFK or YUL to CMN a try. I know that the AT J seats on the 788 are quite dated and on the 789 state-of-the-art, so short notice aircraft swaps can make some difference, but on a daytime flight I would be willing to take that risk.

Azores Airlines (SATA) also flies a 777 daily between Punta Delgada and Toronto for the summer. I flew it in early July and it was full. I paid less than €700 for a business class ticket, which is amazing! Business Class is in a 1-2-1 configuration on a former Alitalia plane they picked up during Alitalia’s bankruptcy. I would highly recommend this flight as an inexpensive business class alternative over the Atlantic this summer as it’s still
showing availability at these low fares…

They also fly direct from Funchal (FNC) Madeira to JFK. Once a week, with an A321. Because of the rough Atlantic weather, this flight gets frequently cancelled or diverted. (A SATA A321 "Inspire" recently got stuck for days at FNC; due to a hard landing.)

OAK-TER still exists as one of the strangest transatlantic flights. They wet lease an A330 from Plus Ultra that flies TER-OAK/BOS/YYZ/YUL on different days of the week. S40236/S40237

Lots of Californians of Portuguese descent fly back to the Azores during the summer, so it's a logical response to customer demand.

They've been operating PDL to BDA the last few years now. Started as charters for peak holiday periods in 2019 and has grown to twice monthly and now once weekly service over the summer since 2021. I would imagine the demand is strong at these destinations to operate direct, people of Portugues heritage and tourists alike.

The flight has operated PDL BDA and back completely full every flight this summer.

You might want to double check the route map posted with this article.

It shows flights originating from mainland Portugal, NOT from the Azores

Re: Jeffrey Gratton’s comment…
You might want to re-read the article as nothing is wrong with the route map as posted. Porto is on the mainland, not the Azores. The article is not about flights from the Azores, but rather the mainland by an Azores based airline…

We need to see frights to Azores or mainland from Atlanta Georgia! I will buy a dozen on the first day!