Azores air access under pressure as passenger numbers and overnight stays fall

Azores airports recorded 1,206,055 arriving passengers from April to August 2026, a fall of 103,766, or 7.9%, from the same five months in 2025. The decline follows Ryanair’s withdrawal from the islands at the end of March. The figures come from the Azores regional statistics service.

Tourist accommodation also recorded a decline, although the latest available figures cover a shorter period. Hotels, local accommodation and rural tourism establishments registered 1,967,881 overnight stays from April to July, down 71,627, or about 3.5%, year on year. Figures for overnight stays in August had not yet been released.

Ryanair had connected São Miguel and Terceira with Lisbon and Porto. Since April, TAP and Azores Airlines have provided the scheduled links between the archipelago and mainland Portugal. Accommodation providers recorded roughly 62,000 fewer overnight stays by residents of Portugal from April to July, making domestic travel an important part of the picture.

The figures do not establish a single cause for the downturn. Overnight stays had already been falling year on year since October 2025, before Ryanair stopped flying to the islands. The latest data show that both arrivals and stays have declined, but do not measure how much of either change resulted from the loss of its routes.

Air capacity matters to tourism businesses, their employees and residents who travel between the islands and the mainland. The Azores parliament approved the creation of an air route development fund in May, and the regional government has said it is working on alternatives. Further monthly figures will show how demand develops with the current flight options.