Departure
93%
vs 95% ▼ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Flores Airport serves the westernmost inhabited island of Europe, sitting on the eastern coast of Flores in the Azores and bisecting the town of Santa Cruz das Flores. For a visiting VFR pilot it offers a single hard-surfaced runway aligned almost due north-south, a modest but historic gateway to one of the Atlantic's most remote communities.
Flores Airport lies on the island of Flores, the westernmost of the Azores archipelago and indeed of Europe, and is operated as part of the Portuguese airport network. It serves the regional capital, Santa Cruz das Flores, through which the runway itself passes, and is of interest to sim pilots chiefly for its remote Atlantic setting, its single-runway layout, and the dramatic volcanic terrain surrounding the field.
The airport sits on the eastern coast of the island of Flores, within the Portuguese Azores archipelago, at an elevation of 98 feet. The runway divides the town of Santa Cruz das Flores in two, running from the area near Porto de São Pedro northward toward Porto dos Poços, with the headland communities of Monte and Pau Pique to one side and the central fajã settlement, stretching from Porto do Boqueirão to Porto Velho, to the other.
The airfield has a single physical runway, 18/36, of hard surface construction and lit for night operations. The two published lengths are 4,437 feet (runway 18) and 4,446 feet (runway 36), giving an effective usable length of around 4,440 feet. There is no ILS approach.
Air traffic services are provided on the tower frequency of 118.3 MHz.
The runway's position bisecting Santa Cruz das Flores, together with the surrounding headlands of Monte and Pau Pique and the coastal fishing harbours of Porto de São Pedro, Porto do Boqueirão, Porto Velho and Porto dos Poços, provide useful visual references for pilots approaching the field along the island's eastern shoreline.
The first recognition of a need for an airfield on Flores dates to 1927, when the Italian Air Force officer Marquis Francesco de Pinedo was forced to land some 200 kilometres from the island during an attempted crossing to Newfoundland; his Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boat, the Santa Maria II, was towed to Horta for repair by a Portuguese fishing boat. It was not until 1972, however, that an airport was formally inaugurated on Flores. In December 1998 the concession to operate the field, alongside those at Lisbon, Porto, Faro, Horta, Vila do Porto, Ponta Delgada and Beja, was granted to ANA Aeroportos de Portugal under decree 404/98, giving that operator responsibility for planning, development and construction of future infrastructure. A tender was issued in January 2013 for accessibility improvements including lifts, escalators and mechanical walkways.
Flores Airport is operated within the ANA Aeroportos de Portugal network, now under VINCI Airports, which has certified the airport to the ACA 4+ environmental standard as part of a wider certification of Portugal's airport system. Scheduled services are flown by SATA Air Açores, linking Flores with Corvo, Horta, Ponta Delgada and Terceira.