The Regional Government of the Azores considered that the conditions are met to maintain the privatization process of Azores Airlines and decided that it “should continue.”

“The New Tour/MS Aviation [NT/MS] group, a competitor in the SATA International privatization process, has shown its willingness, during the negotiation phase, to improve its proposal financially, increasing the overall price to 15.2 million euros and reinforcing the criterion of contributing to strengthening SATA’s financial capacity,” said the vice-president of the regional executive, Artur Lima.

The government official, who read out the communiqué from the Government Council, which was meeting in the town of Madalena as part of a statutory visit to the island of Pico, said that SATA’s board of directors, in a request addressed to the Azorean government, “once again asked for new guidance on how to proceed” with the tender process.

According to Artur Lima, the company’s management informed the Azorean executive that “on February 28, 2025, the NT/MS group presented a request in which it provided SATA’s board of directors with information on the identity of the natural persons, of Portuguese nationality – Carlos Manuel Antunes Tavares Dias and Paulo José Angélica Pereira da Silva – who, if an improved proposal is presented, will be part of the NT/MS group”.

The group of companies “also informed that the sum of the shareholdings that will be held by the two new members will total 49% of the share capital of the company that will hold the SATA Internacional stake”.

As a result, the Azorean government has decided that “since the conditions are met to maintain the privatization process of SATA Internacional—Azores Airlines, it should continue”.

Artur Lima also told journalists that if the privatization process of Azores Airlines goes well and is concluded, the losses and personnel costs will cease to exist, “which translates into a defense of public money and the public interest,” a good measure for the Autonomous Region of the Azores, and “a good step in public finances.”

He recalled that a different situation occurred with the privatization of Saúdaçor, when the region, led by the PS, “was left with liabilities of one billion euros,” with employees and all the running costs.

“It was a negative process for the region and for public finances. This [SATA] will be the opposite. We will have to internalize the 400 million euros [of liabilities], but we will no longer have the operating costs or all the other costs associated with the airline,” he explained.

On December 9, 2024, the President of the Government of the Azores confirmed that SATA and the Newtour/MS Aviation consortium are negotiating the privatization of Azores Airlines and said that the region will assume the airline’s debt.

In Diário dos Açores, Osvaldo Cabral, 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.