Congonhas Airport, which has come under fire for limited capacity and complaints from neighbors about excessive noise in its area, is now concentrating the most important domestic routes in the Brazilian air market, previously owned primarily by Guarulhos.
The offer marks a return to the protagonism of a terminal marked by accidents in the 1990s and 2000s and which is also the subject of complaints about environmental pollution and recurrent traffic jams in its surroundings.
The information comes from a survey by Sheet Based on public data from Anac (National Civil Aviation Agency), which takes into account the five domestic sectors with the highest passenger traffic in the first seven months of each year in the period from 2010 to 2023.
Congonhas has already been at the top of the list in previous years with the airlift connecting it to Santos Dumont in the capital of Rio de Janeiro the busiest route in the country. However, in 2022, the terminal also ranked third and fifth with routes whose destinations are Porto Alegre and Brasília.
The observed behavior now shows an expansion, as in the first seven months of this year the airport conquered the four domestic routes that carry the largest volume of passengers in the country with the strengthening of the CongonhasConfins (MG) route.
The domain of Congonhas coincides with the resumption of the terminal following the impact of the health restrictions imposed by the coronavirus.
The airport, which experienced a steeper decline in passenger traffic than Guarulhos, gradually recovered its passenger traffic but still remained below prepandemic levels in 2019.
According to Ruy Amparo, director of security and flight operations at Abear (Brazilian Association of Airlines), Congonhas, due to its headquarters in the capital São Paulo, attracts a large part of the senior public that has been prevented from traveling in recent years.
During this time, traffic to São Paulo began to concentrate in Guarulhos, says Amparo.
During social isolation, the difference between the number of passengers at the two main airports in São Paulo was the largest observed in the historical series we examined Sheet.
In the first seven months of 2010, Congonhas had only 700,000 fewer passengers than Guarulhos a figure that rose to almost 6 million in 2021.
“The pandemic has reduced traffic enormously. In practice, she stopped Congonhas. Traffic to and from São Paulo was concentrated in Guarulhos. The picture is back to what it was before,” says Amparo.
Dentist André Lins, 45, says he travels through Congonhas at least once a month. The frequency increased about a year ago as he noticed his business trips becoming more frequent.
Since it is the largest city in the country, the location is the main attraction, but the infrastructure is not the best, he says.
“The area where taxis and Uber drop us off, for example, is very precarious. It’s very crowded, especially these days. It doesn’t seem to move. It’s quite disturbing.”
Lins is not the only one to express a negative opinion about the structure of the terminal.
Last year, when Congonhas was franchised to Spanish company Aena, neighborhood associations stepped up their complaints and even suggested that the São Paulo city council impose a pollution and noise tax.
Since March this year, Congonhas has been operating with a capacity of 44 landings or takeoffs per hour, 36 for commercial aviation and 8 for general aviation, which includes small aircraft and business aircraft. Overall, the level represents three more movements than the previous upper limit.
In 2008, the year after the TAM Airbus accident in Congonhas that killed 199 people, the total was 34 movements per hour.
According to Aline Mafra, sales and marketing manager at Latam, despite the recent capacity expansion, Congonhas remains a limited airport, limited to routes that are of most interest to the business community.
“He [Congonhas] In most cases it is a very corporate product. We have grown where we have room to grow. There was an increase in capacity, but not to the same extent as our investment in Guarulhos,” she says.
Azul, in turn, tried to break into the terminal, which is dominated by Latam and Gol. In March this year, the company announced the doubling of its operations in Congonhas to 84 daily movements.
The airline also began offering the route to Brasília from the capital São Paulo, an unprecedented route in its network.
With a lower participation of 20 movements per day, Voepass said Sheet that Congonhas Airport is the most soughtafter in South America and will always play a prominent role given its occupancy.
“There are all expectations regarding the performance of the new concessionaire, which should work towards expanding its operations,” the company said in a statement.
The airlines and their interest groups are optimistic about the recovery of the domestic market. However, according to Anac, it is still too early to start the return of the flight segment between national destinations.
Between January and April of this year, passenger volumes had not yet reached the same level as in 2019. The scenario was reversed in May, a month in which around 7.5 million travelers were transported in the domestic market around 250,000 more than in May of the same period of 2019.
The lead continued into June, but could not be maintained into July. Traditionally driven by holidays, 8.6 million passengers concentrated on domestic flights this month, a slightly lower level than in July 2019.
Portugal stands out among international travel destinations
For international destinations, the scenario is more pessimistic and airlines do not plan to return to prepandemic levels any time soon.
In July, for example, the number of passengers transported outside the country was around 1.8 million, lower than the 2.2 million in the same month of 2019.
Bruno Balan, strategic planning manager for Gol’s air network, points to global inflation as one of the reasons for discouraging international travel.
“The cost of traveling abroad, particularly to more established destinations such as the United States and Europe, has always been measured in dollars or euros. However, due to global inflation, there is a cost issue. These days, spending a week in New York is a lot more expensive than it used to be,” he says.
However, there are also positive highlights. The flow of Brazilian travelers to Portugal, for example, broke a record for the month of July in the series we studied Sheet233,000 passengers were carried during this period.
According to Carlos Antunes, director of the Americas at the Portuguese airline TAP, the result reflects the evolution of the euro and its convergence with the dollar.
“Europe and the US are completely different travel destinations. The USA is the parks, the shopping. But for Brazilians, shopping with the high dollar loses its appeal. And Europe as a gastronomic and experience destination will become more attractive with the weaker euro.” “, he says.
Flights to some South American countries are also increasing.
Although not yet at prepandemic levels, traditional neighborhood destinations such as Peru and Chile saw growth in July compared to the same period in recent years. Flights to Colombia broke a monthly passenger volume record in this historic series.
“We saw Latin America a little warmer. Colombia and the Caribbean for example. For those closer trips we can handle smaller aircraft. For longer flights like those to New York and Europe, we need larger aircraft and there is a shortage of them.” “The industry’s capacity to resume supply of these aircraft is due to several factors, both during and related to the pandemic were created during the Ukrainian war,” says Bruno Balan from Gol.