The SATA Group is celebrating the 77th anniversary of Sociedade Açoreana de Transportes Aéreos (SATA) ‘s first commercial flight. To celebrate with passengers traveling on inter-island routes on this day is resuming a ritual that has marked travel on the Azorean airline for many decades: giving passengers on inter-island flights a piece of candy.
It was a friendly gesture intended to relieve the pressure on the ears at certain stages of the flight and is still part of the memories that inter-island travelers preserve today.
The commercial flights of SATA, Sociedade Açoreana de Transportes Aéreos, Lda. began on June 15, 1947, before the emotional eyes of more than three hundred guests who attended the inauguration ceremony held at the Santana airfield, the only aerodrome on São Miguel Island.
With pomp and circumstance, it marked the start of the air operation whose aim was to operate air traffic for passengers, cargo, and mail between the islands of São Miguel, Santa Maria, and Terceira since, at the time, the other islands of the archipelago did not have an airport.
The purpose of its foundation grew over the years, and Sociedade Açoreana de Transportes Aéreos, Lda., gave way to the SATA Air Açores we know today. This airline connects the nine islands of the archipelago, operates almost 19,000 flights a year, carries more than 900,000 passengers a year, and was distinguished in 2024 as “Europe’s Leading Regional Airlines” by the World Travel Awards (WTW).
In addition to SATA Air Açores, Azores Airlines is also part of the same story, adding ambition to the mission of combating island isolation and achieving the goal of making the Azores archipelago more accessible, something it accomplishes through a domestic and international air operation that shortens the distance between the significant Azorean community living in North America and their homeland.
It also offers direct flights between Europe and the Azores archipelago, which adds up to around 9,700 flights a year and more than 1.4 million passengers transported. According to the satisfaction survey promoted by the Azores Tourism Observatory, Azores Airlines was cited as the first choice of passengers who traveled to the Azores in high season in 2023. In 2024, Azores Airlines was also distinguished as “Europe’s Leading Airline to North America” by the World Travel Award, given its consistent commitment to that market.
It took SATA around thirty years of airline operations to reach its first million passengers. Far from that time, in 2023, the SATA Group airlines together carried around 2.4 million passengers in a single year, traveling to various destinations in North America, the archipelagos of Madeira and Cape Verde, mainland Portugal, and mainland Europe.

In Correio dos Açores, Natalino Viveiros, director