According to the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC), the number of passengers transported in domestic flights from January to July this year grew 6.57% compared with the same period of 2008.
On Tuesday, September 1st, the ANAC passed an operating concession authorizing airline Sol Linhas Aéreas, based in the city of Cascavel (Paraná state), to operate regular domestic passenger, cargo and postal flights.
A second company, Nordeste Aviação Regional Linhas Aéreas (Noar), has also obtained a legal license, and now it only needs to meet the requirements for obtaining the Certificate of Homologation for Air Transport Companies (Cheta), so that it may start operating.
Even though the concession contract allowing Sol to request routes and flight hours and sell tickets has not been signed yet, the company is already announcing on its site that it will begin flying before the end of this month.
For such, employees have already been hired and trained, and one of the first five aircraft in the company's fleet is already in the company's hangar.
Initially, the company plans to fly to the cities of Cascavel, Curitiba, Foz do Iguaçu and Maringá, all in the state of Paraná. Further on, it intends to provide services to other cities in the state, plus the states of Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul, and neighboring country Paraguay.
According to the ANAC, over the last five years, nine other new companies were awarded concessions to operate regular domestic passenger, cargo and postal flights. The most recent one had been Azul, which entered into operation in December 2008. Two other companies were authorized to transport cargo and mail only.
ABr