How’s Brazil airline recovery going?

Today, we’ll toy with the Brazilian Civil Aviation National Agency (ANAC) data to see how’s Brazil airline recovery going so far. The country is still a long way from bringing back those pre-COVID passenger numbers and has seen a shift in the market share, as we’ll see in a moment. The data so far, how are Brazil’s airlines’ recovery going? Between January and July 2021, Brazil has had 31.7 million passengers, both domestic and international. Due to the many travel restrictions, Brazil is currently facing worldwide, nearly 95% of all the passengers are domestic. Many countries have closed their borders to Brazil following the appearance of some COVID-19 variants and spurge of infections. So far, Brazil has had nearly 21 million cases, the third worldwide. For example, the US is not allowing entrance to travelers that have been in Brazil in the last 14 days. Nevertheless, savvy and deep-pocketed Brazilians have found their way around this issue, and they spend two weeks in Mexico before flying to the US, according to ForwardKeys. [caption id="attachment_57176" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Photo: ForwardKeys.[/caption] How’s the domestic recovery going? Brazil’s ten domestic airlines have carried 30 million passengers up to July 2021, according to the ANAC. That’s a 55% recovery compared to 2019’s numbers between January and July. The biggest surprise so far is Azul’s comeback. The airline has carried 11.6 million passengers versus the 14.2 million it had in 2019. That’s an 81% recovery, by far the biggest among its peers. GOL has carried 9.2 million passengers and LATAM 8.7 million. That’s a 48% and a 51.1% recovery compared to its pre-pandemic levels, respectively. Due to this very uneven recovery, Azul has become Brazil’s leading airline, with a 38.8% market share. Two years ago, it was the third-largest player in the South American country. Talk about a comeback. [caption id="attachment_57178" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Photo: ANAC.[/caption] Now, let’s dive into Itapemirim Transportes Aereos’ first numbers. The startup launched operations on June 29 and has, so far, had over a thousand flights. According to ANAC, in its first month of operations, Itapemirim had 19,044 passengers on 425 departures. At 162 seats per flight, that’s not a very strong load factor. We hope that changes into the future. Nevertheless, according to Itapemirim itself, it already has carried 100,000 passengers between June 29 and August 26, so unless it had over 80,000 more passengers in less than a month, something is odd here. Despite the overall recovery not being so strong, Brazil has seen a surge of domestic travelers in the last few months. According to Soul Data, domestic tourists were only 2% below their pre-pandemic numbers in August, and the summer season is just around the corner for Brazil. [caption id="attachment_57177" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Photo: Soul Data.[/caption] How’s the international recovery going? You know it's 2021, and the COVID-19 pandemic is going in full swing when you see that Brazil’s leading airline in the international market is not Brazilian. Copa Airlines has carried 223,794 passengers so far and is just a bit over LATAM, which has taken 222,180. TAP Portugal comes in third place with 142,259, followed by American Airlines and United Airlines with 120,821 and 110,440 passengers each. Azul has had 74,248 international travelers and GOL just 1,353, all in charter flights because the airline hasn’t restored its international connectivity. GOL will resume international flights in November, and its first destination will be Montevideo, Uruguay. [caption id="attachment_57179" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Photo: ANAC.[/caption] Brazil’s average fare Finally, let’s dive into Brazil’s average fare, which is currently at the lowest point in recorded history. According to ANAC, Brazil’s average fare on the 52 main domestic routes in the country is 273.84 reais (US$53). So far, it has had a 2.2% decrease compared to 2020’s average fare. [caption id="attachment_57174" align="aligncenter" width="580"] Photo: ANAC[/caption]

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