The longevity of SATA can be attributed to its unique operational characteristics, which are challenging, tempered by the rigors of the climate, and tend to have a deficit. However, it is essential to the daily lives of Azoreans, and serves as an instrument in the service of Autonomy and an essential attribute for enhancing the notion of Azoreanity.

The exploration conditions of the routes operated by SATA with the apex in Santana (SMG/LPML) explain the difficulties that crew and passengers often encountered there in less favorable weather conditions, despite the excellence of the alternatives available: Santa Maria (SMA/LPAZ) and Lajes (TER/LPLA).

In fact, the company paid in material wear and tear, and without compensation in terms of subsidies or exemptions, for the abandonment to which the infrastructure mentioned in the first place had been voted (despite being elevated to the dignity of an airport, in 1949).

At SMG, two of the three existing dirt tracks were used. The planes coexisted with the cows and sheep that grazed next to them, and the radio aids depended on a single NDB (Non-Directional Beacon).

On days with reduced visibility, the descents were made over the sea, perpendicular to the service runway. And, in drilling, the chronometer was used to calculate the MAP (Missed Approach Point).

On those days, the radio telegraphers (in the DOVE) and the copilots, later (in the DAKOTA), would often open the side window of the cockpit in flight and, peeking out, would shout to the captain that they could see the church tower of Ribeira Seca and then the road and the hill of Rabo de Peixe (which was the railroad to Bulawayo), until it established visual contact with the threshold of runway 24 and decided to land.

Therefore, the rigors of the climate conditioned the regularity of transport (by sea, but also by air), constituting one of the distinctive signs of insularity and an attribute of Azoreanity, associated with the condition of living on an island. That’s how it was at Santana (SMG), SATA’s operational base, until 1969, and that’s how it is at some airports and airfields in the Azores whose operational limitations still cause disturbances in the normal functioning of air traffic.

Ermelindo Peixoto (PhD) – Author of the book commemorating SATA’s 65th anniversary