Last December Azul started its operations in Florianopolis, with 3 flights daily to Sao Paulo (and quick connection to Rio).
Last AprilAzul also connected Navegantes with 3 daily flights.

And now there are talks to connect also Joinville with Azul flights.  Today residents from Joinville have to go to Curitiba to take a plane to the Sao Paulo hub.
Azul is just waiting for the installation of the ILS (Instrument Landing System) in the Joinville airport.

Tags: azul joinville

Even though Florianopolis is surrounded by the airports of Porto Alegre, Joinville and Curitiba, it is one of the fastest growing airports of Brazil. In 2007 it received 1,9 million passengers and from January – June 2009, it received 1.045.086 passengers.
The airport started operating in 1922 and the current terminal of 8.440 m2 was scaled to cater for 980.000 passangers a year; today it is handling double of that amount.

As a comparison: Port Elzibath in South Africa handled 760.282 passengers in 2008, George handled 336.603 passengers.

The plans for expanding Florianopolis airport date from 2004 and would bring it’s capacity to 2,7 million yearly passengers.
The passengers terminal would be expanded from 8.440 m2 to 33.800 m2.
The check-in counters would be expanded to 36.
The parking space for planes would be expanded form 20.187 m2 to 141.700 m2.
4 embarcation bridges would be build
Parking space would be expanded from 500 to 1.850 places.

Finally, after some political pressure, it seems that the project would now kickstart and would be finalized by 2012; I’ll make that 2013, just in time for the World Soccer.  By 2010, the road to the airport will be duplicated, the project has been signed off by the municipality.

The airport is extremely convenient, with GOL you are a 3h, 150 € flight away from Buenos Aires and with TAM or Oceanair you fly in 1h10 minutes for 50 – 100 € (depending if you get a promo) into Conhonas in the heart of Sao Paulo.

Some pictures of the expansion project:

(more…)

Tags: Expansion Florianopolis airport, Hercilio Luz