Voa Brasil does not help the airline sector, experts point out

One of the federal government’s main efforts to unlock the airline sector, the Voa Brasil program, has deficiencies and does not indicate that it will be able to alleviate the problems that were accentuated by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, point out experts interviewed by People’s Gazette.

“The perception is that the sectoral diagnosis is imprecise, since its objective is to offer passage for a certain value, being a short-term action”, says the partner and chief economist at TCP Partners, Ricardo Jacomassi.

The launch of the program, which aims to encourage the sale of airline tickets at R$200 for retirees with an income of up to two minimum wages and Prouni students, has been postponed since last year, when the Minister of Ports and Airports was Márcio França . Currently, he is Sílvio Costa Filho.

The latest promise is that the program will go live this month. One of the factors that would have influenced the delay would have been the “redesign” of the program, points out the minister.

Bruno Corano, economist and fund manager in the United States, believes that it is not Voa Brasil that will make things better for passengers and companies. “It’s much more of a populist and electoral measure than anything concrete.”

Other issues that affect the sector and that involve the government are fuel prices and the release of financing lines. “There is nothing effective on these issues and we are waiting for a new round of negotiations. We have a good dialogue with the government”, says the president of the Brazilian Association of Airlines (Abear), Jurema Machado.

The Brazilian airline sector has been facing a series of challenges in recent years, resulting in significant losses. According to a survey carried out by José Ricardo Botelho, president of the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (Alta), companies in the sector accumulated a loss of R$54 billion between 2010 and 2022. In just three years (2010, 2017 and 2019), companies managed to close in the black.