Airport Chaos in Brazil: Plane Crews and Counter Workers Abandon Posts

Despite the help of the Brazilian Air Force, which is leasing eight of its planes to private airlines, the chaos in Brazil’s airports continued unabated for a fourth consecutive day.

If anything the situation only grew more ominous this Saturday, December 23. Lines, waiting for hours and lack of information continued while the public has been showing their discontent in a much more graphic way, screaming, attacking airlines’ workers and breaking several computers.

Now, the workers themselves are the ones getting revolted. In São Paulo, Rio and Brasí­lia, employees of TAM, Brazil’s largest airline, abandoned their check-in counters alleging they had been assaulted by angry passengers. And TAM’s crews also are refusing to fly maintaining that they have been forced to work way overtime.

Passengers going to Fortaleza, capital of Ceará, had already boarded a TAM plane in Congonhas, the São Paulo domestic airport, this morning, when they were told that they had to leave the aircraft because the crew were refusing to fly due to excessive work in the last few days.

But even after all the crew had left the aircraft the passengers refused to budge and stayed inside the plane waiting for a new crew.
At 1:30 pm, local time, TAM still hadn’t found a substitute crew.

Besides the Air Force, the once number one air carrier Varig is also helping TAM, which has overbooked and now cannot embark all those holding tickets. Varig is lending not only planes but also pilots and staff. The company has already transported more than 700 people this  morning and should fly hundreds more during the day.

Tags:

You May Also Like

Brazil and Colombia in Joint Effort to Fight FARC and Drugs

Brazil and Colombia will be signing this weekend a defense agreement by which the ...

Brazil’s Agribusiness Exports Grow 13% to Almost US$ 6 Billion in August

Brazil's agribusiness export revenues in the month of August reached US$ 5.8 billion. The ...

Lethal Trend: 25% of the Vehicles in Brazil Are Motorcycles

Brazil’s Map of Violence 2012, Traffic Accidents, a document from  Instituto Sangari, found that ...

70,000 Policemen and Firefighters Go on Strike in Rio, One Week Before Carnaval

In Rio, the military police together with the civilian police and firefighters, a total ...

Brazil Strings and Wind Get World Respect

Brazilian musical instruments have accelerated their rhythm of export. Last year, sector foreign sales ...

From the 1.4 Million Cars Brazil Made This Year, 366,000 Were Exported

The Brazilian market for vehicles grew 5.8% in the month of June when compared ...

Brazil’s Air Tragedy: ‘We’re Gonna Make It,’ Says US Pilot After Collision

After weeks far from the limelight, the deadliest air accident in Brazilian history, which ...

Millennium Goals Forum in Brazil Stresses Importance of Sexual Health

Representatives of 16 Latin American and Caribbean countries gathered in Brazil have approved the ...

Brazil Asks for Arrest of Woman Who Murdered American She Met on the Internet

The Brazilian police have indicted a Brazilian woman for kidnapping and then killing an ...

Close to Half Million Marijuana Plants Destroyed in Brazil

In the last four days, the Federal Police (FP) in the state of Pernambuco, ...