Outgoing president of SATA considers it important to privatize Azores Airlines

The outgoing president of SATA, Teresa Gonçalves, today considered it important that Azores Airlines be privatized so that the airline can grow and have the “capacity to dilute costs” arising from the activity.

“I think it is important for the company to be privatized, because SATA needs to grow. The only problem with SATA and those results […] is that we do not have the capacity to dilute costs”, said Teresa Gonçalves to the Lusa agency, on her last day as president of the Board of Directors of the Azores public aviation group.

According to the person in charge, who was speaking on the sidelines of the presentation of the operating results for the first quarter of 2024, at SATA there are not enough planes and also “there is no capacity to inject money into the company”.

“Therefore, SATA needs to grow, it needs to have a private entity that injects money into the company and that costs can be diluted, and then continue the path we have been taking. Because SATA is strategically placed in the middle of the Atlantic, it connects North America, Europe and, therefore, we must continue this work now”, he defended.

At Azores Airlines/Sata Internacional, responsible for the archipelago’s connections with the outside world and currently in the privatization process, net results for the first quarter of this year amounted to negative 25.6 ME (compared to negative 22.7 ME in the same period last year) and at SATA Air Açores, which provides connections between islands, were also negative 4.7 ME (which represents an improvement of 2.3 ME compared to the same period in 2023).

Teresa Gonçalves took office as president of SATA in April 2023, after the departure of Luís Rodrigues to lead TAP.

On April 9, the Regional Government (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM) announced that Teresa Gonçalves had resigned from her position for “personal reasons”.

On April 11, the Workers’ Committee of Azores Airlines revealed that it resigned because the Government of the Azores “did not offer the necessary conditions” for the administration to continue developing the “proposed project”.

Questioned today by Lusa about the reasons for her and financial administrator Dinis Modesto’s departure from the Board of Directors, she simply replied: “We have not abandoned [a SATA]. We carried out our work in the most professional way we could. When we feel that we can no longer effectively act in accordance with our principles and our beliefs and the way we effectively think we should act, that’s it, we have to withdraw.”

“I’m very satisfied because I think I did a very good job. Me, the Board of Directors, Dinis [Modesto]who will go out with me, and the workers”, he concluded.

The resigning Board of Directors sent its opinion on the ongoing privatization process of Azores Airlines to the Regional Government, expressing “reservations about the NewTour MS Aviation consortium and the limitations of the competitor”.

The competition jury, led by economist Augusto Mateus, maintained the decision to accept only one competitor in the final report, but admitted reservations regarding the ability of the Newtour MS Aviation consortium to ensure the company’s viability.

Last week, the regional secretary for Mobility, Berta Cabral, said that “the Government Council will decide and it will be soon”.

According to Teresa Gonçalves, the outgoing administration, “effectively, analyzed the jury report, carried out its own analysis of the entities that were in the consortium, of the company’s valuation”.

“We presented to the Regional Government precisely these analyses, these facts, and we said: now the Regional Government, as shareholder, will have to take a position. And so that’s what we’re waiting for. […] What was conveyed was this, just like that: given certain facts, please, the shareholder decides what they think is best for the company”, he said.

He suggested that the future management of the company pay close attention to people.

“It is essential not to forget people, because, normally, we get into the day-to-day routine and start to focus only on the operation. But behind this entire operation are people and it is essential that we do not forget people. And then continue the good work that has been done,” she advised.