Azul, Brazil’s largest airline by number of destinations, was granted new slots in São Paulo’s Congonhas Airport a number of weeks ago. A database of slots reviewed by Aviacionline shows Azul’s intentions once it starts operations with the newly-given timeframes in the terminal.

The airfield is the country’s most important domestic gateway, as it is close to the financial centers of Brazil’s largest city, and it has long been the focus of Azul’s political moves.

According to the file, the airline will keep its strong foothold in the routes to Belo Horizonte/Confins, Recife and Rio de Janeiro/Santos Dumont, while restarting routes that had been dropped in 2019: Curitiba and Porto Alegre.

Brasília and Salvador will also count with flights from Congonhas operated by Azul, according to the files, which are published by Anac, the country’s civil aviation regulator.

Azul’s war for further Congonhas slots

The airline had been trying to get hold of more slots in the airport since 2019 — when it was the head of a public war of words between the country’s three major airlines –, when Avianca Brasil went bust.

Ultimately, the airline was granted more slots in the airport and, with them, it started its operations in the Ponte Aérea to Rio de Janeiro’s Santos Dumont airport, at the expense of its flights to its focus cities of Curitiba and Porto Alegre.

The COVID-19 pandemic also allowed Azul to receive, albeit provisionally, some more slots in Congonhas.

With the new distribution of slots, Azul expects to grow from 20 daily departures (pre-pandemic) to 42 daily departures in Congonhas, as it was confirmed in the airline’s earnings call last Thursday.

In the same call, Azul’s Chief Revenue Officer Abhi Shah said that «now we’re gonna be able to serve the top 5/6 markets out of Congonhas, which is gonna significantly increase our relevance [amongst corporate travellers] overall».

Indeed, according to Cirium’s Diio Mi application, as of November, the six largest markets from Congonhas (by number of seats) are, respectively, Rio de Janeiro/Santos Dumont, Porto Alegre, Brasília, Belo Horizonte/Confins, Curitiba and Salvador.

Azul was not immediately available at the time of publishing; the article will be updated when, and if, they do provide an official answer.