THE Brazilian Civil Aviation Council backtracks by removing restrictions dating from August 2023, 400 km from the central airport of Rio de Janeiro. Traffic there will still be limited to 6.5 million passengers per year.
In 2022, Santos Dumont reached more than 10 million passengers transported while Galeão had barely 6 million. In order to control and reverse this abnormal trend, on August 10, 2023, the National Civil Aviation Council issued an order limiting from January 1, 2024, Santos Dumont services to airports located less than 400 km maximum from Rio de Janeiro and without international services. After strong criticism from various sectors of the recent regulation, the government canceled this restriction on November 8, deciding nonetheless to limit Rio de Janeiro’s central airport to 6.5 million passengers per year, leaving airlines the choice of their airport to depart from Rio de Janeiro.
The repealed measure was highly controversial and drew criticism from airlines, including LATAMwhich celebrated the decision as it planned to announce a new overhaul of the air network for Rio de Janeiro. We do not yet know how the new distribution will be made between the Brazilian companies. Azul, GOL and LATAM. But LATAM Brasil has already adjusted its flights at Rio airports again after the new rule change made by the federal government, indicates the specialized Brazilian site aero.in. If it maintains a shuttle system at Santos Dumont, it transfers the following destinations to the other Brazilian platform, better sized, but paradoxically less frequented, Galeão (the resolution valid from January 1, 2024, was considered provisional, until a balance was achieved in terms of traffic between these two airports): Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Florianópolis, Porto Alegre, Salvador de Bahia, São Paulo (Guarulhos) and Victoria (source AeroRoutes).
Flights to Brasília and Guarulhos will benefit from a greater offer than today at Santos Dumont. Today in Galeão, LATAM serves the Brazilian cities of Guarulhos, Porto Seguro, Foz do Iguaçu, Fortaleza and Brasília. The road from Santos Dumont to Curitiba will not be transferred to Galeão, which means that there will be no direct connection between the capital of Paraná and Rio de Janeiro via LATAM Brasil. The novelty is the flight between Galeão and Nativewhich was operated until October 2021 and will return from January 2, when LATAM will actually transfer flights from Santos Dumont to Rio International Airport.
