Good news for Madeira tourism! The airline market in Madeira Islands has finally become free for all air travel companies to operate. Until now the connections between Funchal/Porto Santo and Lisbon/Oporto/Faro was considered public service and so it was hard to new companies to join and compete freely. Finally the Portuguese government has decided to open this market freely and so from May 2007 on any airline can operate on the connections of Madeira Islands to mainland Portugal. Easy Jet will be the first low cost airline operating in Madeira.