Montenegro accuses Pedro Nuno Santos of not resolving the issue of flights to the Azores

The leader of the PSD, Luis Montenegro, this Monday accused the Secretary General of the PS, Pedro Nuno Santos, of not addressing the issue of public service obligations (OSP) on air transport in the Azores while he was minister.

“This is one of the issues that was actually on the desk of the current secretary general of the Socialist Party and that has not been resolved,” Luis Montenegro told reporters on a ship that sailed between Madalena, the islands of Pico and Horta in Faial, as part of the “Sentir Portugal” initiative “

Adding that there is now a “liberalized travel market between the continent” and the islands of São Miguel and Terceira, the PSD president considered it “important to provide public services for Faial, Pico and Santa Maria.”

“And the truth is that time goes on, promises follow one another, and this was not of the good will of SATA. [transportadora aérea açoriana] and this service will be called into question,” he said, expressing his predisposition to “solve this issue immediately after the new government comes to power” if the Democratic Alliance (SDP/CDU-NP/PPM) has such an opportunity, but even important “to prevent this from happening. If necessary, this issue will be resolved.”

While traveling with some waves, when asked if the Azores Sea is only for strong people, Montenegro replied that it is “for people who have, on the one hand, courage, a sense of risk, but on the other hand, they must also have competence, and you must have the ingenuity to face adversity.”

“It is an expression of the Portuguese being that we want to invent and recreate at any moment, and that is what we also want to do from March 10,” the date of national legislative elections, he said.

The PSD president drew a parallel with the role of the prime minister, who needs to have courage and “a great desire to face risks, to make decisions, to be persistent, resilient, but at the same time inspiring.”

Previously, in Pico, whose mountain is the highest point in Portugal with an altitude of 2351 meters, where the last phase of the “Sentir Portugal” program began, Luís Montenegro was, among other initiatives, in the municipality of Madalena, where he was able to admire the cultural landscape of the vineyards of the island of Pico, which with Inscribed as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2004.

“We want to reach the peak of our results precisely on election day, the day that matters, the day when the Portuguese will have the opportunity to change the course of the country,” he said, noting Already on February 4, the day of early regional elections in the Azores, the Azoreans will receive the opportunity to “provide conditions for governance and stability” to the current majority of the SDS/CDU-NP/PPM.

In February 2022, the President of the Regional Government of the Azores (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM) José Manuel Bolheiro sent a letter to the Prime Minister requesting a solution to the problem of illiberalized routes (Faial, Pico and Santa Maria) between the mainland and the Azores, provided since 2015 years without financial compensation from the Azores state company Azores Airlines.

The head of the Azores administration recalled that, according to public demands, the Azores carrier will have to stop operating on unprofitable routes.

A month later, in response, the Office of the Prime Minister (OP) António Costa stated that the Government of the Republic was “preparing steps to open an international public tender for scheduled air services on non-liberalized routes between the continent and the Autonomous Region of the Azores and between it and the Autonomous Region of Madeira.”

The 2023 government budget included a budget of nine million euros to launch a public tender, but it was not until October 2023 that the Council of Ministers authorized spending of 45 million euros to provide this service between 2024 and 2029. .

At a hearing in the Assembly of the Republic in November, then-Infrastructure Minister João Galamba said the government had “failed” to compensate SATA for work on public routes because the airline had sent a letter confirming its availability to provide these connections “without any compensation until March 2024.”