The airline low-cost announced, this Thursday, that it will stop flying to the Azores from March 2026, because airport fees are too high. The statement was sent while negotiations are taking place between the company and the regional government, and national officials have already spoken out, stating that “it is not a reason, at this moment, for real concern”. This is because Ryanair is known for using this type of advertisement to try to pressure entities involved in negotiation processes, as has already happened in Spain – where the company decided to cut several routes to peripheral islands. Now Ryanair is threatening to suspend all activity to the Azores archipelago, despite the fact that ANA has not predicted any increase in airport fees for 2026, despite “airport fees in force in the Azores” being “the lowest on the network”, said company officials in reaction to the Ryanair statement.
The matter will still cause a lot of ink if Ryanair’s way of operating over the years is repeated, so it will still be too early to draw conclusions. But it can give us the inspiration to reflect on Tourism in the region and the way in which we have made it grow.
Let’s look at the numbers: since the beginning of this century, the archipelago has seen a profound transformation in the Tourism sector. Between 2001 and 2024, the total number of guests increased significantly: it went from 237 thousand to 769 thousand per year, more than tripling. The number of overnight stays grew even further, from 725 thousand in 2001 to 2.2 million in 2024. The data are from the Azores Regional Statistics Service (SREA) and are available for public consultation. This means that, over the past 23 years, the archipelago has received almost 10 million guests, generating more than 30 million overnight stays.
Unsurprisingly, the greatest growth was recorded on the island of São Miguel – which has also led to many internal disputes, with those responsible for other islands asking for more muscular action from the regional government to facilitate stop-over and help the archipelago to benefit more equitably from the presence of tourists – but islands such as Terceira, Faial, Pico or Santa Maria have followed this evolution in a significant way, the same data shows.
The arrival of more and more tourists has also been reflected in the increase in real estate and services prices on all these islands – in Pico, inflation has been impressive especially since the pandemic, when many businesspeople turned to the Azores in search of options further away from urban centers. Naturally, the development of Tourism was reflected in a general improvement in conditions for a large part of the population, with the creation of jobs and a direct impact on the income for the archipelago. However, gentrification also ended up reaching the still practically untouched territory of Europe’s westernmost islands, which has increased inequalities in some of the territories – see the case of Rabo de Peixe, which continues to be one of the poorest regions of our country, even though São Miguel is so much more full of tourists.
The discussion that has been raging across Europe – and which we have already written about here at Dinheiro Vivo – is currently linked to the fact that populations feel the effects of overcrowded spaces.
This year, thousands of people have already taken to the streets in many cities to protest against excessive tourism and the consequent degradation of local living conditions – here, the demonstrations in Barcelona were widely publicized – and some Governments have decided to take measures [tímidas]. They involve, above all, the revocation of local accommodation licenses (Barcelona) or the establishment of rules that allow only 90 nights per year to be rented under these conditions (London and Paris). But, unsurprisingly, Bloomberg wrote recently, these measures lack monitoring and have, therefore, had practically zero results.
In the Azores, there is the fact that many of the islands are protected heritage sites, and of such magnitude in terms of natural beauty, that many fear that what makes them special – the raw nature, the sparse crowding and the relative exclusivity – is disappearing, as happened with Madeira.
And it is about seeking balance, which we have also been trying to achieve in Lisbon and Porto, above all, that we can take the opportunity to think about while Ryanair threatens to withdraw tourists [low-cost] to one of our greatest treasures. Is it really that bad? Or can we think of another perspective?
And what if Portugal made the Azores its exclusive destination, preferring quality tourism over quantity, and ensuring that the financial impact of the activity has an effective return for local populations, securing a place for talent that would prefer not to have to leave the territory in search of better conditions and diversifying the activity so that growth is sustained and constant?