page_title: Santa Maria Airport (Azores)
section_title: Civil aviation
hierarchical_section_title: Santa Maria Airport (Azores) / History / Civil aviation
caption_attribution_description: A KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Lockheed L-1049C Super Constellation (PH-TFW/4507) at Santa Maria airport, Azores.
context_page_description: Santa Maria Airport is an airport located 5 km west northwest of the urbanized area of Vila do Porto on the island of Santa Maria, in the Portuguese autonomous region of the Azores. A principal hub in transatlantic travel until the end of the 20th century, it was constructed at the start of the Second World War to protect convoys by American troops who were ceded authority until its end. From this period on, the airfield took on a commercial role, reinforced by inter-island travel and connections to Europe, resulting in its obtaining the communication duties for the North Atlantic sector of the airspace corridor.
context_section_description: The accords between the Portuguese, Great Britain and the United States permitted those forces to use the facilities in Lajes and Santa Maria until 2 June 1946. At that time the American forces base was transferred to Lajes and both airports began to be administered from Portugal. By Decree-law 35/736 (5 July 1946 the airport at Santa Maria began to be administered by the Secretariado da Aeronáutica Civil (Civil Aeronautics Secretariate), later substituted by the Direcção Geral de Aeronáutica Civil (Directorate-General for Civil Aeronautics). After improvements to the runway, the airplane parking area and installations in the terminal, the airport was inspected by Lieutenant-Colonel Humberto Delgado (then-Director-General of the DGEC), for it to be certified for operational traffic. The first airplane to arrive following inspection was a Pan American Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, flying the New York-Leopoldville route, stopping at the Santa Maria waypoint on 29 October 1946. Other records refer to a Pan American Lockheed Constellation stopping on the same day.
  Following the airport's certification for passenger service, Santa Maria was selected to operate as the air traffic control centre for North Atlantic region, under the responsibility of Portugal by the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization (PICAO), in the first semester of 1946. During this period, due to an absence of coaxial cable link between Europe and the United States, Santa Maria became an important international centre for communications. Communications were limited to teletype and radio. With the 1965 installation of coaxial cable between the United States and England, all communications between the two continents began to intersect at Santa Maria. The airport was classified an ETOPS alternate, having suitable facilities to accommodate transatlantic flights needing to make an emergency landings.
  The Santa Maria International Airport was re-inaugurated officially on 28 November 1946. The existing infrastructures were expanded in the meantime, with residential areas administrated and developed by architect Francisco Keil do Amaral, who tried to maintain the existing characteristics.
  On 13 January 1947, Lieutenant Henrique Owen Pinto de Barros da Costa Pessoa was named first director of the airport.
  The forerunner of SATA Air Açores (Sociedade Açoriana de Transportes Aéreos) initiated services to São Miguel on 5 August 1957, and to Terceira on 9 June 1947, using a Beechcraft D18S (CS-TAA) christened "Açor".
  From 1940 to 1970 the airport was an important link in trans-Atlantic travel and the focus of the island economy and employment. First, during the construction the airport and support structures, attracting workers from São Miguel and the archipelago, then as a hub of aviation activities, supporting air traffic in the North Atlantic. Transportes Aéreos Portugueses (TAP) (the national flag carrier began layover flights to the airport on 7 December 1962, eventually inaugurating trans-Atlantic service between Santa Maria-New York (26 April 1969) and Santa Maria-Montreal (8 May 1971). Santa Maria was the unique gateway for passengers entering or exiting the Azores; it served as a destination, stopover and intercontinental waypoints for European, North American, Central American and South American airlines, in addition to Caribbean airways, including:
  Aeroflot, which began to use Santa Maria as waypoint to Cuba (during the 1960s)
  Aeroméxico
  Air France, began to use Santa Maria as a stopover in 1948
  Avianca
  British Airways
  Canadian Pacific Air Lines
  Iberia
  LTU International
  Lufthansa
  KLM, first to establish a connection to New York through Santa Maria (on 21 May 1946)
  Pan American World Airways, began stopovers to Santa Maria in 1947
  Panair do Brasil
  Suriname Airways
  Swissair, began to stopover in Santa Maria in 1954
  Trans World Airlines
  Commencing in the late 1970s, Air France's supersonic Concordes were routed via Santa Maria as a technical stop for refueling on weekly scheduled SST flights between Paris and Caracas.
  Along with the airports in Lisb
caption: A KLM Constellation at Santa Maria Airport, during the era when the island was a stopover during transatlantic travel
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