The public service air routes between the Azores and the peninsula, insured by SATA, are “highly deficient”, with annual losses estimated at 12.5 million euros until 2025, the executive president of the aviation group said on Tuesday.
Teresa Gonçalves has specified in the Azorean parliament that these routes have “proved to be very deficient, reaching a ‘peak’ in 2022, due to fuel prices, together with inflation and interest costs”, with a value of 16.5 millions of euros.
Public service air routes operate to Pico, Faial, Santa Maria and Funchal, which are provided by Azores Airlines to the mainland.
“The perspective is that the value of the deficit, by 2025, will be around 12.5 million euros, per year,” said the president of SATA, who was heard in the Economy Committee of the Azores parliament on a proposal from the IL / Azores deputy, Nuño Barata.
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The IL/Azores draft resolution recommends that the Regional Government take steps before the National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC) and the Ministry of Infrastructure to start the obligations of public service of regular air transport by routes, thus opening “the possibility so that more airlines can compete” for the operation of air services, “instead of imposing the obligation of the same company to guarantee service for all routes simultaneously.”
Teresa Gonçalves, referring specifically to the IL/Azores proposal, recalled that there is a first phase of the international public bidding to secure these routes, in which “the airlines are interested in operating some or allwithout any financial compensation.
The CEO of the SATA group safeguarded, in accordance with European regulations, that, at this stage, “the routes are always considered separately, since a company may be interested in exploring a route, without financial compensation, and consider that it is not there are conditions”. explore another route.
According to the manager, in a second phase of the international tender, if there are no interested parties, progress is made “to an exclusivity regime in which economic compensation fits.”
Teresa Gonçalves argues that, “in a scenario where there are no interested parties in exploration without financial compensation, it is highly recommended that the tender be launched for all the routes because, if there are no interested parties in route-by-route exploration, these They could be routes that are not sustainable.”
The general director of SATA said that the “international tender should have been launched a year ago”, defending that “maximum pressure must be exerted on the Government of the Republic to close it as soon as possible.” In the Economy Commission, the director assured, on the other hand, that SATA Air Azores will not be penalized for the amount of the debt it assumed with Azores Airlines.
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“SATA Air Açores will not be, at any time, penalized for this debt that, at this moment, is being transferred to SATA ‘holding’, the parent company that will take over the group’s debts,” he explained.
As he explained, half of this amount has already been converted into capital within the framework of the corporate restructuring and the rest will remain in an intragroup debt between Azores Airlines and the SATA holding, and “a loan must be paid to the holding for a period of 15 years”.
Source: Observadora
