After the closure of the Salgado Filho airport due to flooding in Rio Grande do Sul, the airports that offer alternative routes to Porto Alegre within the state account for only 16% of the total domestic flights registered between May and June last year. The information is from Folha de São Paulo, based on the analysis of microdata from the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac)
If the so-called emergency network, which includes the airport of Florianópolis and two other cities in Santa Catarina, is considered, the capacity goes to 78%.
The activities at Salgado Filho were terminated on May 3, when the water from Lake Guaíba flooded the runway and the first floor of the building. Total passengers, both for domestic and international flights, fell 92.9% from April (516,000) to May (36,000).
When
the activities at Salgado Filho were closed, the federal government and the airlines announced the emergency network, which included the opening of the military base in Canoas, a city near Porto Alegre, and the increase in the number of flights in five terminals in Rio Grande do Sul and three in Santa Catarina.
As the network includes cities far from the capital, flights from Canoas are usually full. In all, there are 34 weekly flights.
From May 4 to June 17, the ten terminals of the emergency network registered 5,274 domestic flights. In the same period of 2023, Salgado Filho alone had 6,784 trips of this type.
Excluding the airports of Santa Catarina, there were 1,060 flights in Canoas, Caxias do Sul, Passo Fundo, Uruguaiana, Santa Maria, Pelotas and Santo Ângelo.
With
the reduction in the number of flights and the competition for trips to the vicinity of Porto Alegre, the price of fares has increased significantly. The information is from Kaiak, an American ticket monitoring company.
Compared to the price of the same period in 2023, the average fare price in Caxias do Sul, in Serra Gaúcha, registered a 100% increase in the period from May 1 to June 19 this year. Passo Fundo had an increase of 64%, and Pelotas, of 36%.
Jaguaruna and Florianópolis, in the neighboring state, were 50% and 14% more expensive, respectively.
In Canoas, the closest city to Porto Alegre, the average fare is R$ 2,000 until July 31, leaving from São Paulo airports.
Two weeks before the tragedy began, on April 16, the price considered normal for July, according to Google Flights’ offers, ranged from R$485 to R$1,300.
Salgado Filho should return to activities only in December
The concessionaire Fraport stipulates that the Salgado Filho International Airport, in Porto Alegre, should resume its normal operations only in the first half of December this year.
The information was disclosed by state deputy Frederico Antunes (PP), after a meeting between advisors to the federal government and deputies from Rio Grande do Sul at the beginning of the month.
A report is expected to be delivered in July, which will assess the impacts of the floods on the airport structure and the runway. Although flooding has decreased in the internal part of the building, access roads and external sectors continue to be affected by water
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