Brazilian air network grows and summer will have more routes than before the pandemic

Anyone who is on the beach and looking at the sky during the summer in Brazil this year will have a better chance of seeing planes passing by. The air network planned for the high season, from December and January, will be greater than in 2019, the last year-end before the pandemic.

For this summer, there will be at least 519 routes, against 443 in the summer of 2019, according to data from the OAG (Official Aviation Guide) system, collected by CCR Aeroportos at the request of the Sheet.

Despite the 76 extra routes (up 17.2%), there will, however, be fewer departures (down 3.8% to 71,000) and 100,000 fewer seats, adding up to 10.9 million available. This is explained by the use of smaller aircraft and lower frequency of flights on some routes.

“The definitive summer is coming that will leave the pandemic behind. We left the recovery mode to talk about real growth”, evaluates Graziella Delicato, business manager at CCR Aeroportos, which operates 17 terminals in the country.

Azul will add 2,000 extra flights in the year-end season, on 21 new routes, including direct connections between Foz do Iguaçu and Porto Seguro and Goiânia to Vitória.

Gol will have 60 new routes in high season, and expects to reach 760 departures per day, the highest volume since January 2020. Before the pandemic, the average was 800 daily departures.

Latam launched new destinations this year, such as Cascavel (PR), Juiz de Fora (MG) and Caxias do Sul (RS). In August, there were 54 destinations, ten more than before the health crisis.

The changes in the aerial map include more connections between the South, Southeast and Northeast and more regional routes, which serve inland cities or connect smaller capitals. After the pandemic, there was greater demand for destinations linked to nature, such as Bonito (MS) and Lençóis Maranhenses, in addition to other beaches in the Northeast.

“When we put a flight from Maringá to Salvador, it automatically opens up more space in São Paulo, because traditionally this customer would fly Maringá-São Paulo and São Paulo-Salvador. Bruno Balan, manager of Air Mesh Planning at Gol.

In addition to the greater interest of Brazilians in domestic flights, the creation of internal routes has a tax reason: some states, such as São Paulo and Paraná, offer ICMS discounts on aviation fuel, in exchange for new air services in their territory.

In many cases, creating regional routes pays off even if the route is at a loss, as the company can supply planes from the fleet that serve other destinations at a discount.

Aviation was one of the sectors most affected by the pandemic. When the world closed in 2020, the total number of flights dropped sharply. Azul, for example, reduced departures from 1,000 to 70 per day.

“We had to throw away all the meshes we had and start the map from scratch”, recalls Balan, from Gol.

Airlines usually plan flights months in advance and change routes according to the time of year and demand movements, based on previous data. But with the pandemic, they were no longer of any use.

“We started to monitor flight by flight, in detail, such as how many passengers boarded, to try to predict demand. Today we are in a process [de planejamento] more like the pre-pandemic and taking history out of the drawer. But we keep looking at the micro to make decisions”, says Balan.

One of the new behaviors of customers is to take longer trips, taking advantage of the possibility of remote work. “We had a very sold out Friday night, and a Sunday night with a huge bottleneck. Today we see that demand spreads a little more, which is good for everyone. When demand is disproportionate, the product becomes more expensive”, says Aline Mafra, director of Sales and Marketing at Latam Brasil.

There were also changes in corporate flights. “The executive who travels to do business and close important meetings continues to fly. The auditor who traveled to visit various company locations throughout Brazil started to do some work remotely”, compares Fábio Campos, director of institutional relations at Azul.

The resumption of these flights is interesting for airlines because they bring more profit. “The tourist usually looks for the cheapest flight. But in the corporate one, when the passenger needs to go and close a deal, he takes what he has. It is the corporate flight that makes a profit for the airline”, explains Cláudio de Carvalho, president of Saesp (São Paulo Airline Workers Union).

For the coming months, airlines are moderately optimistic, given the uncertainties about the performance of the economy and fuel prices. Abear, the entity that represents airlines, points out that aviation kerosene rose 64.3% between January and August this year in Brazil.

On the other hand, there is room for rapid expansion when demand arises. Practically all airports in Brazil have space to receive more flights, with Congonhas being the main exception.

The concession of more airports to the private sector, which advanced this year, is welcomed by airlines, as it speeds up negotiations. “Once we stopped flying in a large city in the interior because the airport did not have toilets available at the time of disembarkation. There were only two urinals, and other flights arrived at the same time. With the private initiative, it is much easier to resolve issues like this . In [o aeroporto] say ‘if that’s the problem, I’ll expand the bathroom or think of another solution'”, comments Balan, from Gol.

Already the price of tickets, which has risen sharply in the last two years, has no prospect of falling. In addition to the rise in kerosene, companies are still dealing with pandemic liabilities. “Many passengers who had tickets held during the pandemic and did not opt ​​for reimbursement are rescheduling their tickets for now and companies need to accommodate them”, ponders Ricardo Catanant, director of Anac (National Civil Aviation Agency).

Carvalho, from the union, considers that personnel expenses are lower. “Companies are recovering the network with fewer employees. The company’s motto is more with less. One of the three big companies has almost 90% of the network it used to have, but with 33% less personnel costs. with a lower salary”, he says.

There is an industry consensus that there is plenty of room for growth in Brazil by attracting new passengers. Data from Abear point to an average rate of 0.5 trips per inhabitant per year in Brazil, four times less than in the US. “The penetration rate of aviation in Brazil is still very low, compared to other mature markets, such as Chile. It was necessary to have more CPFs traveling”, says Catanant.