The Atlantic Connect Group consortium requested clarifications from the European Commission this Monday, 23rd, following the jury’s negative opinion on the proposed acquisition of Azores Airlines, arguing that Brussels should clarify which objectives and criteria are at stake in the process.
In a statement, the Atlantic Connect Group argues that the known European decision establishes that Portugal must sell at least 51% of the capital of Azores Airlines and “it was based on this clear rule” that it structured a proposal to acquire 85% of the Azorean airline, “ensuring financial sustainability, labor stability and reduced risk for taxpayers”.
“However, the proposal received a negative opinion from the competition jury, based on an alleged non-compliance with assumptions that were never explained nor included in the public decision in Brussels”, he points out.
The Atlantic Connect Group also says it requested access to the “confidential version of the agreement concluded between the Government of the Azores and the European Commission”, a request that it says was “denied, without justification”.
“If there are conditions or commitments other than those contained in the decision made public, they were never known to the business owners”, states the consortium, considering that “it is not acceptable for unknown criteria to be used to penalize” their proposal “based on the official information available”.
The consortium also questions “the generic invocation of public interest” as a basis for exclusion from the Atlantic Connect Group, arguing that decisions based “on assumptions never made public cannot remain without scrutiny”.
“The Atlantic Connect Group will not accept that a proposal structured in accordance with available official information is discarded based on rules that were never explained”, the consortium further states, arguing that “if there were other criteria, they should have been made public” and “if there were not, the reasons that dictated the lead will have to be justified”.
The consortium also states that it will use the institutional mechanisms at its disposal to defend transparency and workers’ trust.
“The credibility of the process is not optional and will be taken to its ultimate consequences within the available institutional mechanisms. If the grounds invoked do not find clear support in the European Commission’s decision, all the consequences resulting from this option will have to be assumed, unequivocally, by whoever took it”, it reads.
In January, the jury for the privatization of Azores Airlines, in an interim report, proposed the rejection of the proposal from the Atlantic Connect Group consortium, the only one admitted to the competition, as it understood that it did not “safeguard the interests” of SATA and the region, according to a press release released at the time.
On November 24, 2025, the Atlantic Connect Group consortium presented a proposal of 17 million euros for 85% of the share capital of Azores Airlines, and the Government of the Azores requested an extension of the deadline for the company’s privatization until December 31, 2026, which was accepted by the European Commission.
The Azores Airlines privatization jury proposed the rejection of the consortium’s proposal, the only one admitted to the competition, as it understood that it does not “safeguard the interests” of SATA and the region and places the region and the airline “in a globally more unfavorable position than that resulting from the proposal presented by the same consortium in 2023”.
After the competition jury failed, businessman Carlos Tavares, from the Atlantic Connect Group consortium, considered, in an interview with Lusa, that the “essential point” for purchasing Azores Airlines is the assumption of liabilities by the region, under penalty of no deal.
In a recent interview with RTP/Açores, the president of the SATA board of directors, Tiago Santos, considered that the consortium’s proposal “does not serve the interests” of the group, the Azoreans and the Regional Government.
In June 2022, the European Commission approved Portuguese state aid to support the airline’s restructuring of 453.25 million euros in loans and state guarantees, providing for measures such as a reorganization of the structure and the divestment of a controlling stake (51%).
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