Azores Airlines will connect Funchal, the capital of Madeira island, to Boston and Toronto on Summer 2024. The information was published by the airline in a press release this Thursday.
Flight will be operated weekly in both routes, with flight operated between June and September, during the Northern Summer season. Flights are already available in Azores Airlines’ sales channels, and given its long distance, will be operated by the airline’s Airbus A321LR, with 16 seats in Business Class and 174 in Economy.
These new flights will join Azores Airlines’ existing route connecting Madeira to New York/JFK weekly, which has already been operated this Summer. It represents a further step in the company’s diversification out of the Azores archipelago; it recently announced a similar low-frequency operation from Porto, in the Portuguese mainland, to Boston, New York and Toronto next Summer.
The international arm of SATA Group, the aviation company controlled by the Azores’ regional government, Azores Airlines is currently in a privatization process, prompted by the government’s bailout of the group during the COVID-19 pandemic. A decision on the winning bid is expected to take place between the end of this month and early October, according to Portuguese newspaper Expresso.
«In 2023, Azores Airlines’ operation between Madeira and the Azores is extremely positive», stated SATA Group’s CEO, Teresa Gonçalves, in the press release announcing the flights. «Betting on direct flights between Madeira and North America is a result of the success of the operation between New York and Funchal», said the executive. The release also remarked «the success» of the flights between Azores and Madeira.
In August, SATA Group announced its financial results for the first semester of 2023. SATA Internacional — as Azores Airlines is also known — registered a net loss of EUR20.5 million over revenues of EUR111 million. It did, however, turn a positive EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) of EUR3.6 million, after a negative result in the same period of 2022.
