Three years ago, I wrote the following: “Launching a tender to privatize Azores Airlines with a specifications document loaded with nearly impossible conditions is a mistake the Region will pay dearly for—just as it did in the ill-fated Icelandair episode. (…) We needed only to learn from TAP.”

Three years later, the verdict is in. The sole consortium’s proposal is set to be rejected. Three years have been squandered. Losses have mounted. And we are back at square one.

On February 23, the Azorean Regional Government is expected to deliver the final blow to this failed process—a project propelled by stubbornness and marinated in incompetence, advanced despite repeated warnings from experts and from anyone with the distance to see what was obvious: this was a doomed undertaking.

Now we pivot to Plan B—a direct sale, mirroring almost exactly the privatization model used for TAP—after precious time and millions of euros have been lost. The irony would be amusing if it were not so costly.

This pattern of serial miscalculations—on matters that cut to the daily lives and the pocketbooks of taxpayers—erodes an already fragile government and fuels mounting public dissatisfaction. And SATA is not an isolated case.

Consider the recovery of the Hospital do Divino Espírito Santo in Ponta Delgada. Nearly two years after the fire, we are still debating what to do. Reports circulate. Committees deliberate. But not a single block, not a single bag of cement has been laid to rebuild or transform the hospital into the modern facility the island requires.

The so-called temporary modular structure—originally presented as a stopgap—is now being floated as a semi-permanent solution under the euphemism of “maximizing installed capacity.” Thus we drift into a strange institutional limbo: two mini-hospitals—one modular and makeshift, the other aging and awaiting patchwork repairs.

At times one is tempted to suggest that the government be sent to Madeira for an internship—to study how one builds a hospital from the ground up: modern, expansive, with hundreds of beds, surgical blocks, advanced diagnostic services, and state-of-the-art equipment, largely financed by national and European funds. Vision requires ambition. Ambition requires leadership.

But we continue to think small. Fifty years into self-government, we remain mired in interminable waiting lists, overcrowded facilities, and dispersed services that test the patience and dignity of patients and professionals alike.

The elections this past Sunday revealed something unsettling: a growing number of Azoreans appear willing to cast their ballots for a radical alternative. That should give pause to the current government—and to the establishment parties that rotate power among themselves, increasingly indistinguishable in policy and tone, inattentive to the signals coming from the electorate.

When the two largest parties become variations of the same governing reflex—risk-averse, insulated, unresponsive—they should not feign surprise at the consequences.

The warnings have been plentiful.

As they were with SATA.

Osvaldo Cabral
February 2026
(Açoriano Oriental, Diário Insular, Portuguese Times USA, LusoPresse Montreal)

Osvaldo Cabral is an emeritus journalist with over 40 years of experience covering the Azores. He was the director of RTP-A (the public television station) and the Diário dos Açores newspaper. He is a regular columnist for many newspapers throughout the Azpres and the Diaspora.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers in the Azores, providing the diaspora and those interested in the current state of the Azores with insight into the diverse opinions on some of the archipelago’s key issues.

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).