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Saturday, December 22, 2012

SATA establishes partnership agreements

The North American and European markets, especially Germany, play important roles in the strategy for broadening SATA’s offer and increasing the connectivity of the Azores with the outside world. With this goal in mind, SATA has been developing the establishment of partnerships with other companies, notably US Airways, Virgin America and WestJet, for the North American market, and Air Berlin for the German market.
With the goal of generating connections between the Azores and the rest of the world and thereby contributing to the channelling of tourist flows to the Azores as a destination, SATA has undertaken a proactive strategy to establish contacts with other companies, in order to enable these connections with the outside world.
So far, the execution of this strategy has enabled SATA in the last few months to establish eleven IET – Interline Electronic Ticketing Agreements, trade agreements that allow the Azorean airline company to issue a single ticket for its flights and connections to the routes of the companies with which it has signed partnership agreements, resulting in lower fares, greater convenience and increased security.
The trading agreements already signed by SATA with various major world airlines make it possible to more easily sell the Azores as a destination to potential customers coming from locations that are not served directly by the network of destinations of SATA’s operations.
The possibility of selling trips to the Azores through these agreements is available in the SATA sales channels, in other words, in its network of shops, its call centre and on the Internet, as well as through travel agents and operators, and depending on the type of agreement made, through the sales channels of the partner airline itself.
Generally, the partnership agreements established by SATA not only provide all those benefits for the customers, but they are also a means of promoting the Azores, in that they allow tourist operators and travel agents to make this destination available, directly and competitively, in a highly competitive global market.
The agreements recently signed by SATA include partnerships with US Airways, Virgin America and Westjet, the first two from the USA and the last from Canada; and with SAS and Air Berlin, for Scandinavia and Germany, respectively, besides the agreement already in place with TAP Portugal.
The agreement with Air Berlin is especially important for the Azores. On the one hand, the reasons are related to the interest in and size of the German market as an originating tourist market for the Azores; on the other hand, there is the availability of the “Azorean circuit” tariff – Azores Air Pass – which, in connection with the direct flights of Air Berlin, provides an opportunity of selling all the islands of the region at competitive prices.
Not only have agreements been signed with companies operating in markets that are very important for SATA, such as those of North America (the US and Canada) and of Germany, but trading partnerships have also been made with other airline companies: Aigle Azur, linking Paris with the Azores, via Lisbon; Aeroflot, offering connections to Moscow, via Frankfurt and Munich; SAS and Blue 1, connecting with Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, via Copenhagen; and Wideroe, for connections with Norway, also via Copenhagen.
For the Spanish market SATA has established partnerships with Binter Canarias and Air Europe, which provide connections with the Canary Islands and North Africa, via Las Palmas and Funchal, and connections with routes to mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands via Lisbon.
This process is on-going and evolving. The company is engaged in a continuing action for the purpose of enlarging its range of connections between the Azores and the outside world beyond the network of destinations where SATA operates, making the most of trading partnerships with other airline companies. With the goal of broadening its offer of services, SATA is involved in talks with other partner companies and, within the scope of the agreements that have already been given the green light to go forward, the technical works for their implementation are being prepared.
Included in this context are Eastern European companies such as TAROM, from Romania, aiming for an agreement to be implemented for the purpose of capturing flows of passengers from that market to the city of Porto, via Munich; and LOT, for a partnership with the goal of attracting passengers from the Polish market, via Frankfurt and Munich.
As for the British market, work is underway on an agreement with the airline company Monarch, taking into account SATA International’s route to London.
In North America, a strategic market for SATA, partnerships are being prepared with Porter Airlines, a Canadian airline company, and with Jet Blue, the largest operator at the Boston airport, SATA International’s main gateway into the United States.
In regard to Brazil, SATA is currently working on two partnerships, one with GOL and another with Trip-Azul, with the goal of capturing flows of passengers from South America to the northern European market.


@aviator_aero
 

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