Brazilian airline TAM has received official authorization from ANAC (Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil), the Brazilian aviation authority, to begin operating regular daily flights to Italy and to add a third daily flight to Paris.
The decision number 104 from ANAC, dated August 29, has been published in the Diário Oficial da União, the daily newspaper of the federal government.
TAM will announce the new international route operation, as well as the new flight to Paris, initial date and time, in the coming months. All necessary measures to initiate flights are already in place.
Milan will be TAM’s third destination in Europe. The company already flies to Paris and, as of October 28, will start flying to London. Also, the official decision presented will add a third daily flight to Paris, totaling the 21 weekly flights available for a Brazilian company to fly to France’s capital. TAM plans to operate one of the daily frequencies from Rio de Janeiro.
The strategy adopted by TAM in the international segment is to grow selective in profitable markets, and is coherent with its goal of increasing revenues in foreign currencies, further strengthening its capital structure.
According to ANAC, TAM ended last July with 52.6% market share among Brazilian companies that operate in the international market.
Additionally in the international market, TAM will start to operate a night flight between Guarulhos airport, in São Paulo, and New York, as of September 1. The change in the flight schedule, which will continue daily, will allow passengers to land at JFK airport early in the morning, having more time to benefit from their stay.
The JJ 8080 flight will leave São Paulo at 10:45 pm, landing at JFK at 7:30 am (local time), the next day. The return flight, JJ 8081, will depart from New York at 8 pm (local time), arriving in São Paulo the next day at 6:45 am.
In order to operate this night flight, which will have two planes flying simultaneously, TAM has received the second of three Airbus A330 aircraft that were subleased. To meet the strong demand from executives and entrepreneurs, the aircraft has 39 seats in executive class and an additional 171 in economy.
Besides the daily flight to New York, TAM operates three daily flights to Miami, one departing from Fortaleza (Ceará state) with connections in Belém (Pará) and Manaus (Amazonas). Once a week, the flight to Miami that leaves from São Paulo stops in Salvador.
In South America, TAM has 42 weekly flights to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and operates once a day to Santiago, Chile. Through TAM Mercosur, it flies to six other destinations: Asuncion and Ciudad del Este (Paraguay), Montevideo and Punta del Este (Uruguay), Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Cochabamba (Bolivia).
The company also has a daily flight to Lima, Peru, through a code-share operation with Taca.