On the morning of this Tuesday (29), the inaugural flight of Itapemirim Transportes Aéreos (ITA) took off from Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo to Brasilia. The new Brazilian airline, as part of the homonymous bus company, surprised the market last year by announcing its plans in the midst of a pandemic. It was an official flight for guests, and regular operations will start on July 1.
Its initial network, which includes Belo Horizonte-Confins, Rio de Janeiro-Galeão, São Paulo / Guarulhos, Brasilia, Salvador, Curitiba, Porto Alegre and Porto Seguro, will gradually grow until reaching 35 destinations in June 2022, covering the main cities of the country.
From Airbus they celebrated the arrival of Itapemirim as a new operator of A320ceo aircraft, starting its flights with four units but with plans to reach 50 in 2022.
This reinforces the leadership of the European manufacturer in Latin America and the Caribbean, where it holds 60% of the airline fleets, with 660 aircraft in operation and 450 pending delivery.
«ITA has also selected NAVBLUE, an Airbus service company, to support its flight operations with Electronic Flight Bag and Navigation Data solutions, such as Flysmart +, Performance Engineering Programs, Documentation Management Services, Bases Obstacle Data at Airports and FMS Navigation. These solutions will contribute to the digitization of the airline’s cabin, guaranteeing at the same time a complete optimization of its performance calculations,» they detailed from Airbus.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQs_IkdJIE3/
The deployment of Itapemirim has not been without controversy. And it is that its mother holding company has been in the process of judicial recovery since 2016, which is why many creditors claim that the funds destined to the payment of their debts are being destined to the assembly of the airline.
According to reports in our associated media in Brazil, Aeroin, on two occasions since the beginning of this year, the Group promised that, when they take off for the first time, it would be outside of this judicial process, an issue that has not finally materialized.
On the other hand, the airline has also canceled many flights before they hit the market as a result of fewer aircraft available at launch and lower than expected demand. They also made strategic changes in their network, starting to operate triangular flights in order to consolidate sections (instead of flying, for example, São Paulo – Curitiba and São Paulo – Porto Alegre, they make a flight São Paulo – Curitiba – Porto Alegre – São Paulo).
Despite these drawbacks, the arrival of a new airline is always welcomed as it generates new job opportunities in a context of generalized crisis in the industry and also provides new connectivity options to passengers.
