SATA International

Not Verified | SATA has horrific customer service, and I'll obviously never book anything with them again. I booked a flight with Sata for April 2020. It was cancelled due to Covid. When Sata cancelled my flight they offered me the option to rebook my flight before December 31 2020 (while we are here, still in a pandemic) or take a voucher valid for one year, to expire in April 2021 when we still be a pandemic. I was never offered the option of a refund. I was never offered the option of postponing my flight until it was safe to travel. I called and waited on hold for hours to talk to customer service about a refund; not an option. I emailed dozens of times requesting a refund; not an option. So it was take the voucher or lose my purchase altogether. Now, in December 2020, after all of my other cancelled flights with other airlines issued vouchers and have refunded those vouchers for the cash I paid, Sata won't give me a refund. Have called and waited on hold again, have emailed a dozen times again, and they are telling me 'vouchers are non-refundable, it was in the terms and conditions when you took it.' I was never told vouchers were non-refundable in any of the communications in the spring. I didn't want a voucher in the first place. The useless voucher they offered was to stop their customers from complaining, rather than addressing their customers' concerns or providing them with any kind of option to actually use their payments at a later date.

✅ Trip Verified | Terceira to Lisbon cancelled in July 2019. They refuse to pay flight delay compensation mandated by EU law. Email answers from customer service take months. Very pretty islands and nice people but SATA is a disgrace for Azores.

Not Verified | Azores to Boston. Do not fly this airline! I was stuck there for several days they had no flights going out of the island. When I asked when I would be able to get another flight they said they didn’t know. I was forced to purchase a ticket with Delta that cost $2000 each. I reached out to customer service they will not respond to emails for reimbursement for their mistakes and inconvenience. I will never fly SATA again. Stay away from this airline they treat their customers poorly and are not reliable.

Not Verified | Lisbon to Ponta Delgada. Just avoid this airline at all costs, that's all I can recommend. Rude crew, delayed. Bad customer service, Disgusting food. You would be better off flying travelling with another company including a low-cost airline.

✅ Trip Verified | I flew Boston to Lisbon via Ponta Delgada on Tuesday, June 25th. I was flying with 4 other people, and my daughter purchased four of the tickets (mine and three others together). When we checked in at Logan, the agent tagged the bags incorrectly. When I got to Lisbon on Wednesday, my bag did not, and no one could tell me where it was. My daughter called the agency in Fall River, and a woman said to her that she would need to call Logan lost and found. My daughter then started calling Lost and Found in Lisbon. On Thursday, she emailed Lost and Found in the Azores who then told her that the reason they could not find her bag is that it was mislabeled with someone else's tag if she could describe the contents, which she did. She then called Fall River to ask what the limits of per diem were because of the lost baggage. They told her that they did not know and she would need to ask Lost and Found. Finally, the bag was found in Praia, Cape Verde, but no one could seem to confirm this, and no one could get it out of the country. When my daughter called Sales in the Azores to ask about flights out of Lisbon in case I had to leave earlier than the planned date because I did not have any items left, they told her I would have to pay a change fee. If I did not want to spend a change fee, I would have to get authorization from a Supervisor in Lisbon. The number the woman gave was bogus, and no one could be found. After 85 phone calls (not an exaggeration) and 6 days, my bag finally arrived in Lisbon. Customer service is non-existent; none of their employees (except for one) no anything about anything. One woman even tried to tell her that SATA has no agents in Praia because they don't fly out of there. They fly out twice a week. No one has apologized for screwing up twice and ruining my vacation and for having zero information about anything. Avoid this airline like the plague; it's a nightmare.

✅ Trip Verified | Lisbon to Ponta Delgada via Toronto with SATA International. The aircraft had a change which wasn't mentioned during purchase or at any time ahead of landing, followed by hours on the tarmac here without explanation. This flight should have landed in final destination by now but still on tarmac. Entertainment system has not worked or been switched on at any time during this flight and was given one sandwich, it's looking unlikely that I'll now make connection and there isn't another flight to Toronto for a few days. Its not a good airline, no communication at all and misleading to sell a flight ticket with no mention of one of the stops. And no explanation as to why the entertainment is off.

✅ Trip Verified | Toronto to Lisbon via Ponta Delgada. We chose SATA because it was inexpensive and Portuguese. We were scheduled to depart at 9:55pm on March 17 with a 1-hour layover in Ponta Delgada. We did not leave until 3am on the 18th and our layover was 9 hours. We did not think to keep our boarding passes at the time to seek recompense from SATA. This action required the airline to issue new boarding passes, a legal requirement in cases such as these. They stonewalled the request - meaning they offered excuses but did not comply. Based on their response to this issue, we will never fly SATA again. We did love Portugal, however, and we intend to return - just not on SATA.

Not Verified | This was my return leg to Boston, as I flew into Ponta Delgada via TF Green / Rhode Island Airport in Providence via a A321neo, on their only A330 with its whale livery. Needless to say, Azores Airlines, as they are advertised as that, need to improve on some fronts. In flight entertainment was shallow for a 5 hour flight, as there are only 4 movies, a couple of TV shows and some songs available on the seat back monitors. No games, no map, nothing else, either that, the in flight magazine or whatever you brought inside the plane. Those on the A321neos need to get a app to access the same in flight entertainment as on the A330, as well as Wi-Fi, which they provide on said A321neos for free. Food was not traditionally Azorean, as we had spaghetti with meatballs, which tasted average for a flight. There was some bread with Azorean butter though. Seat was average, cabin staff was average, and everything else about the flight was average. The Azores themselves are interesting as islands, but getting to these interesting islands from America requires a bland airline that needs to improve somewhat.

✅ Trip Verified | Toronto to Ponta Delgada. Our flight was due to leave Toronto for Ponta Delgada, Azores at 9:15 pm but just before leaving for the airport, I learned it had been cancelled. We were put on a flight to Montreal, early the next morning, arriving at 9:30 in time to catch SATA's 11:45 flight to Ponta Delgada. That flight was also cancelled. We waited in the Montreal airport for 14 hours, flnally at 11 pm. boarding a plane that SATA had hired from a Spanish company called Plus Ultra. I had been wary of booking SATA in the first place after reading on this site about their frequent cancellations but since they offer the only direct flights from Canada to the Azores, we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. Never again. After two cancellations in a row, I'd say these people need to get their act together.

✅ Trip Verified | August 2018, my husband, myself and my sister in law traveled from Toronto to Ponta Delgada in what we assumed was going to be SATA plane. As it turns out when we arrived at the airport we were redirected to an "infield" wherein we boarded a Plus Ultra plane, as we can assume this was a Spanish plane with Spanish speaking crew. The plane was old and rattled, my chair the headpiece kept falling off I'm going to assume that the air condition was broken as it was incredibly hot (little children had to be with just their diapers) and not one single representative from Sata made themselves available if there were on board. What a horrible experience if this had been our first time travelling with SATA needless to say we would not be travelling with them again. The food was horrible, but I don't expect much from aeroplane food. Hopefully, there will be more choices of airlines in the future if we ever decide to travel to Portugal again.