The low-cost airline Ryanair is to reduce the number of seats available to the Azores by 156,000, from 231,000 at the end of 2022 to 75,000. The figures were provided to Açoriano Oriental by the president of the Angra do Heroísmo Chamber of Commerce (CCAH), who doesn't see the Irish airline's choice as "dramatic", but rather as a "new opportunity" for regional tourism.

Responsible for around 20% of the people arriving in the Azores - 150,000 passengers via Ponta Delgada and 50,000 via Lajes - Ryanair has load factors of 87% for São Miguel and 86% for Terceira, according to CCAH data.

"We're talking about unprofitable routes for Ryanair, routes with less than 97,  98% load factor. We must understand this in order to understand the demagoguery and the calculations," says Marcos Couto, adding that "the reduction expected is about 75,000 seats next winter", and that "the company's load factors are expected to rise for these routes".

According to the CCAH’s president, it is "almost a certainty" that Ryanair will not leave the Azores immediately, which in turn will lead to a reduction in operations on the Azorean islands. Pointing out that regional tourism "should be very grateful for what Ryanair has done", the head of the CCAH sees the company's new stance as an opportunity to redefine the sector.

"I see it as a new opportunity that will open up for tourism in the Azores, for the connections and connectivity of the Azores with the world. And we must know how to use it".
For Marcos Couto, the logical option will be, in the immediate term and for next winter, to look to SATA and TAP for "some level of response to compensate for their departure", but in the medium to long term, "to start finding companies that can, within the same market segment, to try to find solutions".

Rethinking tourism in the Azores will require, he says, "something we're not used to, which is planning. We will suffer from a certain downgrade in tourism, but it won't be dramatic, as long as we have the ability to plan".

To do so, Couto believes, we need to "work together", leaving aside "the prophets of doom and those who are going to use this for political gain".

Ryanair began flying to the Azores in 2015, first to Ponta Delgada, and a year later to Terceira. It currently flies to Porto, Lisbon and London from the Azores.

In an interview with Dinheiro Vivo, the country manager for Portugal and Spain justifies the decision to leave the archipelago with the rise in Azorean airport taxes - currently at 4.3%.

The Regional Secretary for Tourism, Mobility and Transport, Berta Cabral, said she was in negotiations with the company, and the CEO of ANA - Aeroportos de Portugal revealed that a proposal to reduce the security tax at Azorean airports has been waiting for two months for an order from the Government of the Republic.