Mario Fonseca/RIO DE JANEIRO Paul Lewis/WASHINGTON DC
TAM has emerged as the clear winner in the heated contest with Varig to be awarded more European and North American routes, following the allocation of new international services by Brazil's International Air Navigation Studies Committee (CERNAI). TAM is also finalising deals to boost its Airbus fleet to cater for the expansion.
Forty three of the 63 international route allocations, some of which originally belonged to financially struggling local rival VASP, have been awarded to São Paulo-based TAM by the CERNAI, with the remainder going to Varig. As outlined by the CERNAI, TAM's new international routes cover seven weekly flights to Madrid and an equal number to Frankfurt - along with an additional weekly flight to Paris.
According to TAM, the services to Frankfurt and Madrid will be codeshared with Lufthansa and Iberia, respectively. On the North American route system, TAM will double the number of services it can perform to Miami, from the current 14 to 28 weekly flights. Seven of these will cover the Brasília-Manaus-Miami route from May 2001, TAM stating that it intends to attract US tourists to the Amazon region with these flights.
TAM has also scooped-up all the existing routes to Buenos Aires and Montevideo that had been formerly flown by VASP, with TAM to operate five weekly flights to the former and 14 to the latter from March.
Although Varig was not awarded all the flights it requested, the allotment of all six available Canadian routes came as an unexpected surprise. The carrier was also given a weekly frequency increase on some of its existing routes, with a further two flights to Germany, three to Spain and one each to France and Italy - aside from seven to the United States.
The airline recently received its fifth Airbus A330-200, and is seeking between three and five additional aircraft for its new services. Two A330s are expected to be taken in March on lease from an Asian airline (possibly Korean Air). According to sources, TAM is in discussions with several leasing companies including GATX Flightlease, CIT Aerospace and GE Capital Aviation Services for additional A330s. GATX Flight-lease is providing TAM with six ex-South African Airways A320s to add to the airline's existing fleet of six A319s, and four A320s of 38 that it has on order.
Source: Flight International
