The president of the Terceira Island Council warns of “the possibility of some failure” of the route to New York in the low season, as it was announced at the very beginning. According to Marcos Couto, the connection was negotiated for “six months” and only went ahead under “political pressure.”
“What I find highly reprehensible is the way Azores Airlines treats the reality of Terceira Island differently and that worries me,” he criticized.
According to Marcos Couto, while “the connections to New York and Boston via Ponta Delgada have never left the system”, the connections from the two cities to Terceira island “were made available in the system very recently and this leads to a redoubled effort” of promotion.
He revealed that the route was negotiated “for six months” with SATA, but “if it hadn’t been for political pressure,” there would have been no connection.
According to Marcos Couto, point-to-point connections are “extremely expensive and have very high failure rates,” which is why a “highly differentiating” tourism product was created. This product involves selling Atlantic world heritage cities, such as Angra do Heroísmo and Porto.
He explained that American tourists can visit both cities, which share “history, culture and gastronomy,” with flights from New York and Boston to Terceira and from Terceira to Porto.
Guido Teles, the deputy mayor of Angra do Heroísmo, noted that despite the flight to New York, Terceira has “few international operations” in the low season, when there is “an increasing number of tourists on the island.”
“We have two flights from the United States, when we’ve already had flights from Canada and Spain. We’ve clearly had a much better offer,” he pointed out.
Guido Teles also regretted that the flight was announced “at the last minute”. “It’s very difficult for operators to do their job now to fill the planes and then it’s easier to justify that the operation doesn’t work,” he criticized.
The mayor also revealed that the preliminary draft of the Investment Plan for 2025 includes a sum of 5 million euros for attracting operations to Terceira island, saying that he hopes it will be “fully implemented” and that it will be a sign of “good preparation for next summer.”


The president of the Municipal Assembly of Praia da Vitória, Paulo Luís, highlighted the “concerted work” of the Angra do Heroísmo Chamber of Commerce, the municipalities, and the vice-presidency of the Regional Government in increasing stopovers and flights to Terceira island.
Chega MP Hélia Cardoso argued that the Azores need to define what they want in terms of tourism and “whether the islands are attractive enough for the airlines to do their job or whether we have to finance the tours of third parties from other countries with the taxes of all taxpayers.”
Luís Leal, a regional assembly member of the PS political party, called for a more significant effort to attract routes, pointing out that from 2022 to 2024, the island had “five more hotels and 138 more local accommodations registered”.
The CDS-PP assembly member Pedro Pinto argued that Terceira must be able to “create moments of attraction for the public ” and “fill up the planes, accommodation and restaurants.”
For over an hour, the councilors discussed the opinion to be given on the draft Investment Plan for 2025. Eventually, they set up a working group to gather contributions from the various entities represented and to postpone the vote until an extraordinary meeting at the end of October.
However, a majority decided that the opinion would not make a positive or negative assessment of the document but would merely present a list of its positive and negative aspects.

in Diário Insular-José Lourenço-director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance) at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks Luso Financial for sponsoring NOVIDADES.