Flying – Azores Airlines and Horta Airport, Faial

My return flight was on 19 May 2025, but it turned out to be a true tale of cancellations and re-cancellations.

The 19 May was not part of our trip, as a group we had to leave the hotel before 12:00, but we had included a transfer to the airport. Initially our flight was delay, but we did finally go to the airport, and check-in our bags.

The flight (same aircraft registered CS-TKK) was scheduled to leave Lisbon at 15:10, arrival at Horta 16:55. It actually departed from Lisbon at 18:10, after completing a morning round-trip to Pico (the island next to Faial). On the flight towards Horta it was directly diverted to Porta Delgada. It would appear that it left Porta Delgada at around 20:30 flew towards Horta, circled over the western edge of island of San Jorge, before flying back to Lisbon.

According to the airport’s official AIP documents, Horta provides RNAV (RNP-AR) instrument approaches, but does not list an ILS (Instrument Landing System). This means that aircraft cannot perform “autoland” landings there, and that pilots rely on non-precision RNAV or RNP approaches, suited for the visual minima conditions the runway supports. As far as a know the airport’s Minimum Descent Altitude (MDA), the lowest altitude a plane can descend to without runway visual contact, is close to the 400 m cloud cover on that evening. In any case landing with RNP-AR only, required airline/operator-specific authorisation. Understandably, this was not forthcoming.

We had to pickup a new boarding card for the next day, and recover our bags. We were told that the company could not provide hotels, since the three with which they worked were full. They provided the procedure for requesting reimbursement of a room (max. €80 per night), meal (max. €15) and breakfast (max. €7). They also provided two taxi vouchers.

On the 20 May, the early morning return flight Lisbon-Horta-Lisbon was cancelled. The flight S43153 (registration CS-TKQ) which should have left from Lisbon to Horta at 14:50, actually left at 16:46, landing at Horta at 18.02. We had to check-in again, and were actually seated in the plane when the flight was cancelled. No reason was given, however the pilot did say that he did not receive a landing slot in Lisbon. As far as I know there was no reason why the flight could not land in Lisbon, flights landing up to 23:30 are accepted, and the curfew is at 00:30. However, I think that there were also three other late evening flight cancelled, one from Barcelona, one from Paris (CDG), and one from Ponta Delgada. I think they may all have been scheduled to land after 22:00.

Again everyone had to pickup a new boarding card for the next day, and we received the same reimbursement procedures and vouchers. But we could not collect our checked-in bags. However, they also provided a coach into Horta and a pre-paid meal (max. €15) at a local restaurant.

On the 21 May the plane CS-TKQ was already programmed to depart from Horta at 17:25 (having made a return flight on the 20th and retuned to Horta on the morning of the 21st), but it actually left at 09:46, arriving in Lisbon at 13:04.

Where did I sleep?

As one might guess there was some confusion about finding a place to sleep. As a group, we had already “lost” our travel guide, our subject expert, and two of the group (early departures). So we were four individuals looking for accommodation, etc. Fortunately one of the our group (Cori) managed to associate with four Portuguese women (including one teenager) in a similar situation, and a local airport worker proposed a house in Horta, with four bedrooms (surprisingly at exactly €80 per person, per night). Not a perfect arrangement, but meeting the four Portuguese women made it all worthwhile. They were a joy to meet.

Naturally we booked in to the house for the first night, but fortunately were able to re-book for the second night as well.