After almost three months since it suspended its operations, Itapemirim still owes former employees salaries and labour rights; passengers still haven’t received refunds; creditors increase the pile of lawsuits and a lessor can’t repatriate one of the aircraft, which was cannibalised in São José dos Campos.
The airline, which arrived promising to revolutionise Brazilian aviation, went no further than a short, six-month flight that ceased on 17 December 2021, leaving tens of thousands of people helpless. The promise of returning to the skies in February was never fulfilled and today there are not even planes that can support that hope.
Employees
Every week, AEROIN receives many complaints, denunciations and evidence from people linked to the company, who complain of not being able to receive the fruit of their labour. There are several complaints related to unpaid terminations of employment contract and even FGTS (unemployment fund) not deposited, although it has been deducted in the pay slip. The lawsuits of former employees, who “were left adrift” are also piling up.
Passengers
Faced with the noted breach of the reimbursement agreement, ANAC issued a note a few weeks ago, in which it asks the affected travelers to register their complaints on the Consumidor.gov portal. More than waiting for Itapemirim to catch up with its obligation, something that borders on the unlikely, ANAC gathers evidence to prevent any impetus of the company to fly again before solving the problems it has generated for passengers.
On the private portal Reclame Aqui (complain here), new complaints appear every day, from customers aggrieved at having lost their money.
Aircrafts
Among the seven aircraft that Itapemirim brought to the country, all of them have left, returned to their lessors. If at first the company tried to sell the idea that the Airbus jets were going for “maintenance”, but when the export certificates started to be made, it was noticed that everything was history.
In this process, one of the lessors was unlucky. This is because one of its aircraft leased to ITA, registered PS-AAF, is still in Brazil, more specifically in São José dos Campos, where it was cannibalized.
The information was confirmed by AEROIN based on evidence received from a source that prefers to remain anonymous. In the documents, there are several communications from the airline requesting the removal of parts of Airbus A320 registerd PS-AAF (msn 2359) to be used in the rest of the fleet.
