Did you know? Ponta Delgada airport in the Azores opened to civil traffic in 1969 as Nordela Airport

Ponta Delgada's airport on São Miguel, in the Azores, was officially inaugurated on 24 August 1969 and opened to civilian air traffic under a different name: Nordela Airport, according to ANA Aeroportos de Portugal.

ANA marked the airport's 50th anniversary in August 2019 with a public event and a campaign launched in mid-June that year under the slogan "We have only changed for the better". The figures it published at the time show how the airport grew: passenger traffic went from 504 thousand in 1997 to 979 thousand in 2014 and 1.905 million in 2018.

The network described by ANA in 2019 also shows the airport's role for the archipelago and its diaspora. Of 264 weekly flights to 26 destinations, 129 linked the Azores islands, 87 went to mainland Portugal (65 to Lisbon and 22 to Porto) and 6 to Madeira. Across the Atlantic, there were 19 weekly flights to the United States and 7 to Canada.

For travellers, this history explains why a mid-Atlantic airport carries so much traffic: it serves inter-island links, the mainland and long-haul routes at the same time. The figures date from 2019, so current routes and schedules should be checked with the airport and the airlines before travelling.