Itapemirim harmed consumer, says Ministry of Justice

The Ministry of Justice decided this Friday (24) to open administrative proceedings against the ITA (Itapemirim Transportes Aéreos), a company whose operation was suspended a week ago, as it assessed that the company had harmed consumers.

Even if the company is working to relocate or reimburse passengers (there are 133 thousand in total), the assessment is that “the measures may even mitigate some situations, however the damage to the collective of consumers remains more than configured”, according to Senacon (National Consumer Department), at the head of the process.

Itapemirim has 20 days to present its defense. Sought by the report, she has not yet expressed herself.

The agency had given a deadline for Itapemirim to send the plan adopted to mitigate damages to customers. The company sent it, but the folder judged it unsatisfactory.

Now, it opens a process that could culminate in a fine of up to R$ 11 million, among other sanctions. São Paulo’s Procon may also fine the company the same amount.

Senacon highlights that the company did not comply with what was offered and purchased by the consumer, “in a delicate situation of pandemic and, still, in the middle of the year-end parties”. “In addition to the damage generated, this fact adds up to a great frustration in the expectation of consumption”, he assesses.

Since October, the company has had three meetings with Senacon and sent a different person to each of them, according to Lilian Brandão, director of the Consumer Protection and Defense Department.

The meetings were requested by the folder, which detected an increase in customer complaints about flight delays and cancellations.

Itapemirim launched an operation in the air sector in the midst of the pandemic, when trips were suspended and some companies in the sector succumbed. Anac authorized the grant in May 2021, in an extraordinary online meeting for the case.

The group has been under bankruptcy protection since 2016.

​Sidnei Piva, president of the company, is still in a legal dispute with the former controllers of the company, the Cola family — who, in a statement, said they had warned Anac about the economic-operational infeasibility of the group’s airline subsidiary, “as well as the diversion of funds to pay creditors that led to the creation of the aforementioned company”.

Piva has several accusations from former controllers of companies he acquired in recent years.

ITA started flying in June. In light of the judicial reorganization scenario, the Itapemirim group claimed that the air arm had funds of US$ 500 million (R$ 2.8 billion) that would transfer the amount as the goals were met. Piva never revealed what the funds would be.

ITA informed in response to Procon-SP that the suspension affected over 133,000 passengers considering round-trip travel in the period from December 17th to February 17th and that it plans to resume operations on this date.

When contacted, Anac says that, in April 2021, the company filed the grant application with the presentation of the required documentation. During that month, inspections of the operations and maintenance bases, training evaluation, operational evaluation flights and examination of the crew were carried out.

The agency claims that it also issued official letters to the judicial administrator, the state prosecutor’s office and the judge of the Bankruptcy and Judicial Reorganization Court “requesting information on the group’s judicial reorganization process, as well as any relevant fact that could impact the corporate partition together to ITA, which is a different company from the aforementioned group”.

“The agency only received an answer from the MP, with general information and pointing out that “Itapemirim Transportes Aéreos is not covered by the restructuring process under discussion”, he says.