RIO AIRPORT SERVICE CHANGES

[trilingual]

Beginning a few days ago, all flights except the shuttle to Sao Paulo and a few regional flights have been moved from Rio's downtown Santos Dumont airport to the international airport at Galeao. If you currently hold long-standing reservations within Brazil, be sure to check to see what changes have been made to your flights because of this shift.

 

The move was done partly to facilitate the upcoming renovation of extremely overtaxed Santos Dumont (built for a couple of million passengers a year and recently handling over 5 million a year). Meanwhile, Galeao has been severely underutilized. Moving the bulk of domestic flights to Galeao is also expected to stimulate an increase in non-stop international flights to Rio, because passengers will be able to make same-airport transfers to their final Brazilian destinations. Fees charged airlines at Brazilian airports are very high, but the state government has just lowered the tax on airline fuel so it will be significantly cheaper to refuel in Rio than in Sao Paulo. Other charges by Infraero, the airport operator, have also been cut at Galeao. All of this should contribute to an increase in flights, especially international ones.

 

Plans include further updates and better shopping/dining options at Galeao (many newer Brazilian airports have adopted the shopping mall approach, with lots of attractive choices). Foreign and domestic tourism to Rio is also burgeoning, with hotel occupancy rates increasing dramatically, even in the off-season. All of this will also promote an increase in direct flights to Rio. As it is, Varig has gone up to 4 non-stops daily to both Miami and Paris during high season (2 daily to each city in low season). Air France is increasing its capacity on its Paris-Rio route, and other airlines are likely to follow suit. It looks like Sao Paulo's recent near-total dominance of non-stop air service is about to come to an end.