Government of the Azores cancels Azores Airlines privatization tender and will launch a new one – Aviation

The Government of the Azores canceled the privatization tender for the airline Azores Airlines and will launch a new one, claiming that the company was valued at six million euros at the beginning of the process and is now worth 20 million.

“[O Conselho de Governo] decided not to proceed with the privatization process of Azores Airlines due to the significant change in the economic and financial conditions taken into account in the company’s initial assessment. The current privatization process of Azores Airlines is thus cancelled”, announced today the vice-president of the Regional Government of the Azores (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM), Artur Lima.

The governor was speaking in Angra do Heroísmo, on the island of Terceira, reading the statement from the Government Council, meeting today, via videoconference.

At the beginning of April, the jury for the public tender for the privatization of Azores Airlines delivered the final report and maintained the decision to accept only one competitor, but admitted reservations regarding the ability of the Newtour/MS Aviation consortium to ensure the company’s viability.

The board of directors of the SATA group, led by Teresa Gonçalves, who has since resigned, expressed “reservations about the NewTour MS Aviation consortium and the competitor’s limitations” in the opinion sent to the Regional Government.

According to Artur Lima, the decision to cancel the competition was taken taking into account an assessment of the SATA group airline, carried out by a consultant, which now places it at a value of “more than 20 million euros”, when at the beginning of the process it was valued at six million.

“The best interest of the Autonomous Region of the Azores in the face of a company that is more valuable today, which is more robust, is to cancel this privatization process and start a new privatization process, with this new value of 20 million euros, in instead of six million euros”, he pointed out.

“It’s a sufficiently valid argument, in fact provided for in the specifications”, he reinforced.

Asked whether reservations about the competing consortium also weighed on the decision, the vice-president of the Regional Government said no.

“The argument that the government uses to cancel this privatization process is to defend the public interest of the Autonomous Region of the Azores and Azores Airlines […]. This is the argument that the government uses to cancel, all the others discussed were not relevant”, he highlighted.

Artur Lima recalled that the region has until 2025 to complete the privatization process of Azores Airlines, as agreed with the European Commission, so it will launch a new tender soon.

“We have time to launch a new privatization tender and as we have time and we have a more valuable company, we can launch a better privatization tender, which better defends the Azores and serves the interests of the Azores”, he revealed.

“We will soon start the new privatization process of Azores Airlines, I can’t say exactly the deadline, but we still have some time for that”, he added, highlighting that “the only way to save the company is obviously to privatize it for capital injection “.

The government official also rejected that the launch of a new competition is a “setback” in the process, claiming that the executive “would be doing harm if it did not take advantage of this added value”.