Brazil's TAM to overhaul 40% of flights for World Cup
RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil's main airline TAM has asked the National Civil Aviation Agency for permission to reschedule 40 percent of its traffic during next year's World Cup in order to focus on host cities.
This will represent "a major change in just a month" but there will be no additional flights during the event, which kicks off June 12, TAM President Claudia Sender told the daily Folha de Sao Paulo.
TAM operates 800 daily flights with a fleet of 120 aircraft out of 42 airports across Brazil.
It wants to increase daily flights to the northeastern city of Fortaleza from 28 to 32 and those to Cuiaba, capital of central Mato Grosso state, from five to 11.
Fortaleza and Cuiaba are two of the 12 host cities for the first World Cup to be held in Brazil since 1950.
Latin America's economic giant hopes to welcome 600,000 foreign visitors during the tournament, which is also expected to draw three million Brazilians.
There is no real alternative to air travel in this continent-sized country of 200-million people, where airports are often congested and in urgent need of an upgrade.
There is also a shortage of domestic routes.
Sender said TAM will not gain much financially from the traffic overhaul and will have to invest more during the tournament to recruit and train more staff.
"Close to 50 to 60 percent of our air tickets, depending on the periods, are for business trips. During the World Cup, we will have mostly passengers traveling for leisure and who pay less than business passengers," she noted.
In 2014, TAM will invest around $30 million dollars for staff training, 50 percent more than this year, she added.
Source: AFP
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