Brazilian still travels little by plane due to high prices, points out association

While acknowledging the progress of Brazilian aviation over the last ten years, the regional vice president of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for the Americas, Peter Cerdá, says that air travel still needs to become more accessible in the country — which, in his view, primarily involves reducing fuel costs.

According to the director, Brazilians rarely travel by plane, especially in the domestic market, where the dimensions are continental.

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“Airport concessions in Brazil are going to the right place, bringing good quality of service, but the average air travel is still low. We have to make travel more accessible, fuel taxes are still high,” said the official in an interview with Broadcast (Grupo Estado’s real-time news system), during the annual meeting and conference of the International Airport Council for Latin America and the Caribbean (Acilac), held in Buenos Aires.

According to Cerdá, IATA has been working with the National Civil Aviation Agency (Anac) and congressional representatives to establish regulatory policies that help “aviation to grow”.

He said that, in Brazil, the average number of trips per inhabitant/year is 0.42. “We need to have more connectivity opportunities”.

PERSPECTIVES

The executive said that the election of governments in Latin America with political campaigns based on “social reforms” could bring as one of the consequences the increase in taxes.

“We have seen in the region the election of more center-left governments, less focused on a market economy. We want to make sure that these governments understand the value of aviation and air transport for the economic recovery, imposing new taxes would be contradictory to this objective,” said Cerdá.

*The reporter traveled at the invitation of the ACI
The information is from the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo

With information from UOL