SATA Air Azores

Toronto to Sao Miguel Aug 28 and return Sept 18. New alliance with West Jet helps immensely with baggage handling from Edmonton. Service by ground and in-flight staff is excellent and fully bilingual. Pleasant hard working and highly professional. Meal okay but beverage service with wines and coffee is excellent. Seats are short for a tall person and seats are closer together compared to West Jet. Cabins clean and no apparent repairs needed. Older cabin features. For the money paid for the round trip flight this was a great value.

Amsterdam to Sao Miguel flight S4 551 May 6. Second from Sao Miguel to Amsterdam on May 13 flight number S4 550. Flew with SATA twice first time we had a delay of 22 hours and the second time we had a delay of almost 4 hours. Never again. The planes are pretty rickety.

Toronto-Lisbon on 6/21. Lisbon-Ponta Delgada on 6/30. Ponta Delgada - Toronto on 7/2. All of the above flights departed timely. The crew were very friendly pleasant and accommodating. In-flight service was excellent including meals and beverage selections. SATA's widebody aircraft are A310's that are a little older and show some signs of age (though I'm sure they are maintained well) but overall seats were comfortable and the aircraft cabin was clean. The in-flight entertainment systems were a little intermittent however with a couple of screens (and several earphone jacks) not functioning properly. Luckily my longest flight with them was only 6 hours in length. I would recommend passengers bring their own books magazines earphones and a smartphone or similar device for entertainment. Overall I believe SATA provided very good service and good value - better than some 4-star airlines I have flown with.

Flew to Sao Miguel from Toronto return on A310. All flights left on time. Flight crew kept passengers informed about progress including southerly route change due to Hurricane Irene. Cabin crew members were friendly helpful and bilingual. Meal and snack on both flights were above average. Beverages included juices coffee tea and good Portuguese wine. On return trip Audio for the movie (pull down screens) did not work for many seats around our section. Stopped in at SATA office in Ponta Delgada to work out a better seat selection. They were helpful and courteous. Service overall has improved over the last couple of years disappointed with technical problems onboard but the staff and service were good.

Flew Boston to Santa Maria via Ponta Delgada. Check-in in Boston was extremely slow and as a result after TSA searched my bag there was no time to put it on my plane. Received my bag in Santa Maria 2 days after my arrival. It was impossible to find out if my bag was still in Boston or went to Lisbon. The plane was noisy and was packed with passengers. Seat width/pitch is oriented toward an average Portuguese person so for somebody above 6 feet and/or wide build seats are extremely cramped. Staff was friendly and the food was above average. Entertainment system is dated. Overall the price is pretty high for what you get. But there are no other flights direct to Azores from the US East coast.

London Gatwick-Ponta Delgada Sao Miguel Azores. The outward flight departed on time Airbus A320 aircraft looked in an excellent condition very clean and looked brand new. Flying time 3hrs 40 mins very smooth flight with no turbulence. The crew were very friendly and helpful. A passenger was unwell during the flight and the stewardess was very caring bringing extra drinks cold towels and checked how she was feeling every so often. The flight was approximately three quarters full. The small complimentary baguette tasted nicer than it looked and there was a chocolate bar with tea and coffee. In addition to this there was two rounds of soft drinks water apple juice orange juice etc all complimentary. Alcoholic drinks were available for a charge. The outbound flight was direct but the return flight was via Manchester. The flight left on time just after 1pm and we arrived in Manchester 10 mins early. Flight was very smooth with the same complimentary drinks and sandwiches as the outbound flight. Cabin crew were friendly and very professional. When we landed in Manchester Airport there was some confusion. We knew before hand that we had to disembark the aircraft at Manchester. Some of the passengers were unaware of this and the crew only mentioned that the Gatwick passengers had to disembark when we landed. When the cabin doors opened all of the passengers for Manchester and Gatwick stood up and the crew announced that the Gatwick passengers should sit down to let the Manchester passengers disembark first. If the crew told us this before hand it would have made life much easier. The Gatwick passengers eventually disembarked (with lots of moans and groans) and the passengers were given an in transit boarding card. Gatwick passengers had to take all of their hand luggage to the security check point have the bags scanned and then board the same plane back to Gatwick. The whole process was ridiculous but apparently this is due to UK immigration not SATAs fault. We departed Manchester on the same aircraft 1hr later for the 35 mins flight to Gatwick. We arrived in Gatwick over 20 mins early. Overall very impressed with SATA. Modern aircraft excellent timekeeping with a friendly and professional crew. I will definitely fly with them again.

Boston-PTA Delgada-Boston. Boarding process quite good. Flights left on time. Very attentive cabin crews. Food decent. All in all flights very good. My only complaint is with the US reservation office. Chaotic at best. They do not communicate very well. Don't bother emailing you get no response.

I had a flight from Toronto to Porto with a stop at Ponta Delegana. The flight was scheduled to leave at 10pm. Before leaving the house I decided to go online and check the departure times to make sure it wasn't delayed. It was delayed 2 hours - after I had got ready to leave again checked online again and it was delayed to 2pm the following day. This enraged me as I was paying for my rented car as I was still in Toronto. The following day it was delayed again to 3. I called Sata and it turns out that they divided the Ponta Delegana flight with the Porto flight. This meant that I would be going on a Lisbon airport the day after at 6am. It's not the first time of Sata doing this either.

Toronto to Porto then Lisbon to Ponta Delgada and Ponta Delgada to Toronto. All three flights left and arrived within a few minutes of scheduled times and flight crews were very courteous. Meals as good as any other airlines and wine was probably better. The aircraft were clean and appeared to be well maintained. They had movies during the flight but the plane had the old style drop down TVs. The only real complaint was the flight from Lisbon to Ponta Delgada was originally scheduled for 1250 but was changed to 1630 without anyone notifying us - even though we had provided both cell phone numbers and email. As a result we had to sit around the Lisbon airport for an extra three hours. The seats are also very close together and don't provide a lot of legroom for a long flight. Otherwise everything else was great and we are planning to travel with SATA again.

Toronto to Ponta Delgada and back and flight was exceptional. Service on board was good staff polite. Economy food was okay but I bring my own food anyway. The interior seemed a bit dated legroom was good and there were tv's with movies.