1945-1953: Postwar relaunch

After the dissolution of the original company, the Portuguese government acquired the rights to the SAP name and re-established what would become the current airline in 1945. Passenger service was reinstated with an inaugural Douglas DC-3 flight from Lisbon to Madrid in 1946. On 31 December of that year, SAP began its Linha Aérea Imperial, a twelve-stop colonial service including Luanda, Angola and Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique. It covered 24,450 kilometres within 15 days (both ways), making it the longest air service operated with twin-engine airliners at the time.

In 1947 domestic services commenced from Lisbon to Porto as well as from São Tomé to London. Four Douglas DC-4 Skymasters were purchased in this year, remaining in service until 1960. These were used on the routes to Africa and to major European destinations including London.

Registration: CS-TDA