Azores Airlines is a small airline with a fleet of eight Airbus A320-family aircraft, based in the Azores (some of the Atlantic islands that belong to Portugal). Historically, the carrier’s network has been focused on offering service from the Azores to both North America and Europe. However, next summer the airline has some interesting new route plans.
In this post:
Azores Airlines’ summer 2024 Porto flights
As reported by AeroRoutes, as of the summer of 2024, Azores Airlines is planning to launch nonstop flights between Porto (OPO) and North America. Specifically, we’ll see service to three destinations — Boston (BOS), New York (JFK), and Toronto (YYZ) — with each route getting once weekly service.
Starting on June 4, 2024, we’ll see service from Porto to Boston with the following schedule:
S4271 Porto to Boston departing 6:25AM arriving 9:35AM
S4272 Boston to Porto departing 11:05AM arriving 11:00PM
The flight will operate westbound on Tuesdays and eastbound on Wednesdays. It will cover a distance of 3,144 miles, and is blocked at 8hr10min westbound and 6hr55min eastbound.
Starting on June 6, 2024, we’ll see service from Porto to New York with the following schedule:
S4277 Porto to New York departing 6:00AM arriving 9:35AM
S4276 New York to Porto departing 11:05AM arriving 11:35PM
The flight will operate westbound on Thursdays and eastbound on Mondays. It will cover a distance of 3,322 miles, and is blocked at 8hr35min westbound and 7hr30min eastbound.
Starting on June 1, 2024, we’ll see service from Porto to Toronto with the following schedule:
S4371 Porto to Toronto departing 6:00AM arriving 9:35AM
S4372 Toronto to Porto departing 11:05AM arriving 11:50PM
The flight will operate westbound on Saturdays and eastbound on Fridays. It will cover a distance of 3,515 miles, and is blocked at 8hr35min westbound and 7hr45min eastbound.
All of these routes will be operated by Airbus A321neo aircraft, featuring 186 seats. This includes 16 business class seats (similar to domestic first class in the United States) plus 170 economy class seats.
To address a few of the interesting things about this service:
- Presumably the reason for the day of week variation is that Azores Airlines will swap planes at its North American gateways between the Porto service and the Ponta Delgada service
- It’s interesting to see such early westbound transatlantic flights, and to see daytime eastbound transatlantic flights (which I love, especially when there aren’t flat beds)
- Azores Airlines will be competing with Air Transat on the Toronto route, and both TAP Air Portugal and United fly from Newark to Porto
- Once weekly service is pretty limiting in terms of building up demand, but I guess in the other direction passengers can fly with one stop via Ponta Delgada
My take on Azores Airlines’ Porto expansion
The whole country of Portugal has become a much more popular tourist destination in recent years, ranging from Lisbon, to Porto, to the Azores, and beyond. While Azores Airlines is focused on the Azores, it’s ultimately a Portuguese airline, so it’s not unreasonable the airline would launch transatlantic flights from other parts of the country.
Still, I can’t help but find this to be pretty noteworthy. Azores Airlines and TAP Air Portugal have long had a codeshare agreement and partnership, though have also competed pretty fiercely. For example, a few years back, TAP Air Portugal launched a route from Ponta Delgada to Boston, competing head-to-head with Azores Airlines. That route ultimately didn’t last. Now we’re seeing the opposite, where Azores Airlines is competing in some markets where TAP Air Portugal has historically dominated.
Obviously Azores Airlines is launching these routes because it thinks it can make more money flying these flights rather than additional flights out of the Azores:
- The Azores is such a hot tourist destination, so has competition from other airlines to the Azores just made it hard for Azores Airlines to continue growing?
- Is Azores Airlines’ issue that the airline only has A320-family aircraft at this point, which limit the range the airline can fly? Back in the day the airline had A310s and A340s and flew to the Bay Area, but obviously many of those routes are no longer within range (read my review of Azores Airlines’ A310 business class)
I’m curious to see if these routes prove successful and become part of Azores Airlines’ long term strategy, or if this is just lasts for one summer.
Bottom line
As of the summer of 2024, Azores Airlines will launch flights from Porto to three destinations in North America, comprised of Boston, New York, and Toronto. Each route will operate once weekly, with daytime flights in both directions.
It’s cool to see Azores Airlines expand its transatlantic service beyond the Azores, and I’m curious to see how this performs.
What do you make of Azores Airlines’ new Porto flights?
We need to see frights to Azores or mainland from Atlanta Georgia! I will buy a dozen on the first day!
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…
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.
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 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.)
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...
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…
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,...
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.
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.
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.
You might want to double check the route map posted with this article.
It shows flights originating from mainland Portugal, NOT from the Azores
Azores Airlines actually used to fly between BOS and LIS (before TAP started their service) but has since ended this service
“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…
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.
God awful westbound departure times. Count me out. I'll chng in LIS, obrigado.
So, in the past three days Ben has questioned Breeze, Jet Blue and BemudaAir's business models yet this makes sense?
Correct me if i'm wrong but don't they fly a330 and a321 plus two dash 8 types??
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.
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
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.
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
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...
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 :)
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...
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.
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.
@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*