During the summer season 2024/2025, SKY Airline will operate between Montevideo (MVD) and Rio de Janeiro (GIG), its third destination in Brazil from Uruguay.
The new route will begin on December 16, operating four times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday) with Airbus A320neo aircraft, which have a capacity of 186 passengers, providing a total of 1,488 seats per week.
Rio de Janeiro will join other destinations operated by SKY Airline in Uruguay: Salvador (SSA) and Florianópolis (FLN), the latter to be resumed in December 2023. During the first five months of the year, SKY transported 31,658 passengers between Uruguay and Brazil.
“With this launch, we hope that passengers will have more options to fly directly between these two cities. Additionally, we aim to continue strengthening the SKY brand in both countries, allowing more passengers to enjoy the tourist attractions of the Uruguayan capital and the Brazilian city with affordable prices from the best low-cost airline in South America,” said Carmen Gloria Serrat, Commercial Director of SKY Airline.
For his part, the Minister of Tourism, Eduardo Sanguinetti, stated that “this announcement of direct connection between Uruguay and such an emblematic city as Rio de Janeiro is received with great satisfaction and optimism, as it not only facilitates access for Brazilian tourists but also opens new opportunities to strengthen tourism and commercial ties between both countries, something we have been working on in recent years, as our main objective is to grow in that market.”
Matías Carluccio added that “our goal is to bring Uruguay closer to the world, so we are pleased that the work we do between the public and private sectors to enhance connectivity is yielding these results.”
SKY will compete on this route with JetSMART, which currently operates five weekly flights using A320neo and A321neo aircraft, having transported 45,214 passengers between January and May 2024, according to ANAC Brazil.
Additionally, the Chilean ultra low-cost airline will increase its weekly flights from 5 to 7 between Santiago (SCL), Chile, and Montevideo. While the routes to Florianópolis and Rio de Janeiro start in the Chilean capital, the connection with Salvador da Bahia is operated by the Peruvian subsidiary from Lima (LIM).
Starting in January 2025, SKY will offer a monthly capacity of 33,000 seats to its four destinations, positioning itself as the third most important airline in Uruguay, according to the Cirium platform.
The current state of international flights in Uruguay
Currently, twelve airlines operate in Uruguay, mainly in Montevideo, connecting to fifteen destinations in nine countries.
LATAM is the main airline in Uruguay, offering more than 50,000 seats per month, followed by JetSMART with 43,000 seats per month.
The other airlines operating in Uruguay are Copa Airlines, Aerolíneas Argentinas, Iberia, American Airlines (seasonal), Air Europa, GOL, Azul, Avianca, and Paranair.
Buenos Aires is the main destination, with more than 27,000 monthly seats offered by Aerolíneas Argentinas and JetSMART, followed by Santiago, with 24,000 monthly seats, and São Paulo with 23,000.
Uruguay is also connected to Panama City, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Miami, Bogotá, Asunción, Florianópolis, Salvador, Recife, and Curitiba. Punta del Este also has regular connections to São Paulo and Buenos Aires, and during high season to Asunción and Santiago.
