According to information from Antena 1 Açores, the board of directors of the SATA group, which has resigned, has already sent its opinion on the privatization process of Azores Airlines to the Regional Government, expressing "reservations about the NewTour MS Aviation consortium and about the limitations of the competitor".

"It is a matter of 'timing', for the Regional Government to analyze the report [from SATA] and certainly there will be a response in the positive or negative sense. But let's face it: we always take into account the issues raised by the jury and the opinion of the board of directors", said Berta Cabral to journalists at Ponta Delgada airport.

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

The minister responsible for Mobility safeguarded that "the Government Council will decide and it will be soon".

Berta Cabral was today at Ponta Delgada airport to receive the inaugural flight of the Smartwings airline, from Prague to the Azores, having mentioned that the company will ensure two weekly connections, during what she classified as a period of "quite extended" operation, since it only ends in November.

"We are talking about more than 50 rotations with 10 thousand passengers on the outbound flight and more than 10 thousand on the return flight. It is a very important operation that further increases the high level of connectivity of the Azores to the outside world, mainly to Europe and North America", pointed out Berta Cabral.

The minister mentioned that there will be "almost fifteen airlines operating to the Azores, in the high season, with regular flights, connecting the region to 26 national and international destinations".

The political leader safeguarded that the Eastern European market is growing a lot, as a result of political instability, which leads to "seeking safe markets on this side of Europe", so the Azores are experiencing "great growth in this market".

When questioned about the prospects for tourism in the Azores in view of the approaching summer, even with the partial withdrawal of routes by the 'low cost' Ryanair, Berta Cabral stated that the operator "has an operation identical to the one it had last winter".

"When winter ended, we already had more territorial passengers than we had the previous summer, even with Ryanair, which means that the other companies absorbed the traffic from the 'low cost' operator and still grew", said the regional secretary.

Read Also: Sale of Azores Airlines? Azorean Government receives opinion by the end of the month (Portuguese version)