Condor, Germany’s largest leisure airline, has obtained slots in São Paulo/Guarulhos airport for the Winter 2023 season, according to the latest slot database release of Brazil‘s largest gateway. This foreshadows the end of a four-year hiatus without regular flights by the airline in South America.
According to the slots dataset, which ranges from late October 2023 to late March 2024, the airline would return to Brazil with three weekly flights between its main base in Frankfurt and Guarulhos, arriving in São Paulo on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. These slots are reserved starting from October 31, the first Tuesday of the IATA Winter season.
Such flights, the database shows, would be operated by the airline’s Boeing 767-300, which count with 18 seats in Business Class, 35 in Premium Economy and 206 in Economy.
Albeit the slot denotes an intention, it still does not mean Condor will effectively go ahead with the flights.
This would represent the company’s first regular operation in Brazil since 2019, when it dropped its routes connecting Frankfurt to Fortaleza and Recife, touristic centers in the Northeast. In 2017, Condor also left Rio de Janeiro and Salvador.
Condor’s expected return to Brazil
Brazilian authorities have ever since been attempting to attract Condor back to Brazil. On September 2022, during the Bolsonaro administration, a director of the airline met with representatives of Embratur, the country’s promotion board, and of GRU Airport, the company that manages Guarulhos Airport.
Earlier this year, already during Lula Da Silva administration, the head of Embratur, former MP Marcelo Freixo, met with the same director of Condor in a tourism conference in Berlin.
According to the press release reporting this meeting, in 2022 Brazil registered 120,670 German visitors, still away from the all-time record in 2005, when the country received 308,598.
Germany and Brazil are currently connected by LATAM Brasil and Lufthansa. The former flies daily between São Paulo and Frankfurt, as does the latter; Lufthansa also connects Munich to Rio de Janeiro three times a week.
