Sao Miguel, Azores - “New” destinations are rarely remotely novel. Take the newest, Sao Miguel. The main island of the Azores is certainly remote: adrift in mid-Atlantic, 900 miles west of Lisbon. But thanks to 15th-century Portuguese adventurers, Sao Miguel has long been accessible to anyone with sufficient reserves of money and patience.
More recently, a once-a-week flight has connected Gatwick with the island's capital, Ponta Delgada. I have long been keen to take it, but every time I checked the fare on the Azores' airline, SATA, it came to more than £300 (about R5 000) return. For that sort of money I'd like something more than a four-hour flight. Yet Sao Miguel has suddenly become as affordable as a trip to the Mediterranean, thanks to a no-frills flight from Stansted that began last month.
In the intensely competitive world of European tourism, it's about the best news any destination could have to shout about: the number of flights from western Europe's biggest city, London, has doubled with the arrival of Ryanair's new service, and fares have dived.
I paid £110 return. Many of the other passengers took relish in telling me they had done rather better and found tickets for £80. None of us would have flown to the island were it not for the sudden availability of cheap tickets.
As I discovered, the appearance of this gorgeous archipelago on the low-cost map of Europe has added a “new” and very family friendly destination. Astonishingly, though, the Azores tourist board is concealing the sudden availability of cheap seats.
A bit of background. Under Europe's “open skies” policy, any EU airline can fly on almost any route it wishes, subject to airport slots being available. But an exception is made for routes given “Public Service Obligation” (PSO) status. The idea is to protect links that might be jeopardised by market forces - such as Dundee and Newquay to London. Subsidies are permitted and competition can be kept at bay. Accordingly, until this year SATA and its state-owned sibling, TAP Portugal, had a comfortable duopoly on scheduled Azores flights.
From the start of the summer schedules the Portuguese aviation authority, INAC, eased the rules. Within a week, Europe's two biggest budget airlines, easyJet and Ryanair, started shuttling between Lisbon and Ponta Delgada.
Ryanair added six flights a week from Portugal's second city, Porto. The odd day out is Saturday, when the route switches to Stansted.
Grin and bear it
As Ryanair started flying to the Azores, KBC - the UK public relations company representing the islands - put out a press release. It began: “As direct flights from London to the Azores commence this April …” I imagined it would herald the islands' most dramatic travel event for decades. But it ignored the extra seats and lower fares, instead talking only about the existing service from Gatwick - which restarted for the summer on the same day as Ryanair's link.
The PR firm explains the curious omission as follows: “Our contract with the Azores Promotion Board is to promote the Azores alongside the SATA flight from London Gatwick to Ponta Delgada, as the airline is state owned.”
As other small “legacy” carriers have discovered to their discomfort and distress, going head-to-head with the biggest no-frills airline in Europe is unlikely to end well. At airports across Portugal this year, 27 March was official Smiling Day. Eight days later, when Ryanair arrived, I imagine it turned into unofficial Frowning Day.
Yet travellers should be beaming from ear to ear, along with the islands' tourist industry: besides the air fare, our joyful family adventure pumped at least £1 500 into the local economy.
The incredible hulk
Of all the sights and experiences awaiting you on Sao Miguel, the most startling is the Monte Palace. Today, the concrete hulk resembles a wrecked barracks from Kabul or Baghdad, rapidly acquiring camouflage as nature reclaims it. But clamber through the foliage that is slowly strangling the structure and you see that this was once a hotel. Portugal's finest, in fact, according to the award it collected within a year of opening in the mid-1990s. But with access to the island so tricky, the investors' dream of creating a luxury resort soon crumbled. In the same week as it picked up the prize, the Monte Palace closed down - permanently, as it turned out.
The new tourism boom has arrived too late to save the Monte Palace. The five-star property has become as extinct as the volcano on whose rim it perches so majestically - a macabre add-on to tours of Sete Cidades, a spectacular confusion of craters at the far west of the island.
Elsewhere on Sao Miguel, though, hibernating hotels are being brought back to life. At Furnas, where the ground seethes with volcanic hyperactivity, the spa hotel reopened the very week that Ryanair started flying.
In Ponta Delgada I was puzzled to find a once-proud ocean-front mansion, that was created by a Boston millionaire, all locked up and empty. The handsome basalt building has a terrace with perfect views of the harbour and the Atlantic. A 2001 guidebook revealed this was once the city's top hotel. One day soon, it will shine again - despite the efforts of the tourist board to distract us from exactly how cheap and easy it is to reach this wonderful old island.
The Independent