SATA Air Acores (SP, Ponta Delgada) has announced it is deploying an ATR72-500 from Spain's Swiftair (WT, Madrid Barajas) under a short-term ACMI contract to handle inter-island flights in the Azores as one of its DHC-8-Q400s remains in maintenance.

The Grupo SATA subsidiary said in a statement that the Swiftair aircraft will be deployed for at least 17 days between August 6 and 23. The airline said the ACMI was seen as the best solution to mitigate the Q400's downtime, given global supply chain challenges and the need to maintain passenger service levels.

ADS-B data shows that ATR72-500(QC) EC-KKQ (msn 763) has been scheduled to operate between Ponta Delgada to Pico, Terceira, Horta and Santa Maria, PT.

SATA Air Acores has five company-owned Dash-8-Q400s and one wet-leased unit from Malta's Luxwing in service, ADS-B data and ch-aviation fleets data confirm. In July, it temporarily wet-leased an Azores Airlines A320, citing a Q400 being out of service as the reason.

In response to a query from ch-aviation, SATA Air Acores said the unscheduled maintenance of the Dash-8-Q400, CS-TSE (msn 4380), was due to increased inter-island demand and frequencies. As a result, the original maintenance schedules for some aircraft (particularly concerning the engines) had to be readjusted. Normally, these maintenance adjustments would not cause major delays, but global supply chain shortages exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine are impacting maintenance timelines, it said. Given the summer peak, the airline said it was taking proactive measures to ensure all flights and schedules run smoothly.