The Brazilian Civil Aviation Council has overturned the 2024 restriction on Rio de Janeiro’s Santos Dumont Airport (SDU), which planned to limit the routes available to a maximum distance of 400 kilometers (248.5 miles), heavily impacting the connectivity of this airport located in the city’s downtown.
Decision overturned
The Civil Aviation Council revoked a resolution from August that aimed to restrict the operating radius of Santos Dumont. Revoking this resolution was made after “extensive discussion” involving the Municipality and State governments in Rio de Janeiro, the country’s National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC), and other parties, including airlines and airports, as reported by the local media outlet Exame.
In a statement, the country’s Ministry of Ports and Airports said revoking this decision was based on technical criteria with the aim of strengthening Brazilian aviation. Instead, Santos Dumont Airport will now have a cap of 6.5 million passengers annually “to ensure the best level of service to the population in accordance with the airport’s operational capacity.” The new measure will come into effect starting in January 2024.
Brazilian airlines celebrate the revoked measure
Restricting the maximum distance available for flights out of Santos Dumont was a highly controversial measure by the Brazilian government. A radius of 400 kilometers left only a handful of Brazilian cities within the reach of airlines from SDU, including Sao Paulo, Campinas, Juiz de Fora, and Belo Horizonte.
In August, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), through the regional vice president in the Americas, Peter Cerdá, said restricting destinations would limit customer choice and would negatively impact the entire aviation value chain and connectivity of the Rio de Janeiro region. He added,
“Approximately 60% of currently scheduled flights at SDU are to destinations other than São Paulo Congonhas and Brasília and are unlikely to be transferred in full to Rio de Janeiro’s Galeão airport (GIG).”
A few weeks later, LATAM Airlines announced it would move ten domestic routes out of Santos Dumont, meaning the loss of 179 weekly flights for this airport. Three other airlines also operate from SDU: Passaredo, Azul Linhas Aéreas, and GOL Linhas Aéreas.
However, now that the measure has been revoked, LATAM Brasil is celebrating. In a statement, the company said it was thrilled with the technical and favorable decision of the Ministry of Ports and Airports. The airline added,
“LATAM believes that this is the measure that makes the most sense for passengers in Rio de Janeiro and the balance of the city’s airports. This approach adopts necessary limits for the operation of Santos Dumont without taking away from consumers the freedom to choose where to fly, following the best practices of global aviation…
