Ponta Delgada, Portugal, Spt. 25, 2025 (Lusa) - SATA will cancel flights between the Azorean islands on Friday until 2 p.m. due to the passage of tropical cyclone Gabrielle, which has forced the airline to activate its contingency plan.
In a statement released on Thursday, the Azorean air transport group announced that it had a contingency plan in place, which includes issuing alerts to passengers, the possibility of changing flights without penalties or additional costs, and the early cancellation of some connections.
In the case of SATA Air Açores, which operates flights between the archipelago's nine islands, today's flight SP408 between Ponta Delgada and Terceira island has been cancelled and "the entire operation on September 26 will be suspended until 2pm, with the rest of the operation being maintained", said the company.
As for Azores Airlines, which flies to and from the archipelago, today's flight S4882 from Ponta Delgada to Praia in Cape Verde has also been cancelled.
On Friday, the company plans to maintain its operations, with the exception of flights S4151/S4150 Lisbon-Horta-Lisbon, S4182/S4183 Terceira-Porto-Terceira and S4121/S4120 Lisbon-Ponta Delgada-Lisbon.
Flight S4131 between Lisbon and Terceira is scheduled to depart at 13:40, SATA said, warning that the remaining flights may be delayed depending on the weather conditions in the Azores.
Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle is expected to pass through the Azores as a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale (scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is the most serious category), causing the weather to worsen from the end of today.
In the Central Group (Pico, Faial, Graciosa, Terceira and São Jorge) "heavy rain, wind with gusts of around 200 kilometres per hour from the south, turning to the northwest, and sea agitation with waves between eight and 10 metres of significant height, with the maximum wave reaching 14 to 18 metres" are forecast.
In the Western group (Flores and Corvo) there will also be heavy rainfall and gusts of up to 130 kilometres per hour, with waves identical to those in the Central group.
These two groups are under several IPMA red warnings - the most serious on a scale of three - between the end of today and Friday morning.
The islands of São Miguel and Santa Maria (Eastern group) are expected to experience "sometimes heavy rainfall", gusts of between 100 and 120 kilometres per hour, and waves up to nine metres high.
The Regional Government has already declared an alert situation between 6 p.m. today and 6pm on Friday in the Central and Western groups, prohibiting certain activities due to the passage of the tropical cyclone.
PC/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
