Gol Transportes Aéreos

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Gol Linhas Aéreas
IATA
G3
ICAO
GLO
Callsign
Gol Transporte
Founded 2000
Hubs Congonhas Int'l Airport
Belo Horizonte Int'l Airport
Rio de Janeiro Int'l Airport
Brasília International Airport
Secondary hubs Santos Dumont Airport
Guarulhos Int'l Airport
Porto Alegre Int'l Airport
Fleet size 82 (232 orders)
Destinations 57
Parent company Grupo Áurea
Headquarters São Paulo, Brazil
Key people Constantino de Oliveira, Junior
Website: http://www.voegol.com/
Gol ticket counter at Brasilia International Airport
Gol ticket counter at Brasilia International Airport

Gol Transportes Aéreos is a low-cost airline based in São Paulo, Brazil. Gol is the second largest airline in Brazil with 38.6% of the Brazilian domestic market and 12.2% of the international market of flights from and to Brazil as of September 2007. It owns Varig airline and operates a growing domestic and international scheduled network. Its main hubs are São Paulo's Congonhas International Airport, Rio de Janeiro's Galeão International Airport and Brasília International Airport - Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek. Gol also has focus operations at Rio de Janeiro's Santos Dumont Airport, São Paulo's Guarulhos International Airport and Porto Alegre's Salgado Filho International Airport.

Gol refers to itself as Gol Intelligent Airlines [1] (Gol Linhas aéreas inteligentes in Portuguese) as a slogan. The company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange as "GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes S.A."[2] "Gol" translates into "goal" in Portuguese and Spanish. [3]

Contents

[edit] History

The airline was established in 2000 and started operations on January 15, 2001. It is a subsidiary of the Brazilian conglomerate Grupo Áurea, which has other transport interests including Brazil's largest long-distance bus company. Grupo Áurea in turn is owned by the Constantino family. Gol's unprecedented low fares revolutionized the domestic Brazilian air travel market. As of 2004, Gol had carried 11,600,000 passengers, and constituted 20% of the Brazilian air travel market.[citation needed]

On June 24, 2004 Gol launched simultaneous initial public offerings on the New York and São Paulo stock exchanges. It is now owned by AeroPar Participações (77%), Venture (17.6%) and American International Group (5.4%) and employs 5,456 staff (at March 2007).[4] The growth in Gol's stock price made the Constantino family a member of the Forbes Magazine billionaire list in 2005 .

In 2007, Gol was supposed to begin a code-share agreement with TAP Portugal, opening the European market to the Brazilian airline, and the internal Brazilian market to the Portuguese airline (the largest foreign airline in Brazil). TAP Portugal instead chose to cooperate with TAM Airlines (TAM Linhas Aéreas).[5]

On March 28, 2007 Gol officially purchased Varig for US$320 million. Gol announced that Varig will continue to operate under its current name.[6] The transaction, via its GTI subsidiary, requires a US$98 million cash payment, with the balance through the allocation of non-voting shares to Varig Logística and Volo which had acquired Varig in June 2006 for US$24 million.[7]

[edit] Destinations

A Gol 737-8EH
A Gol 737-8EH
A Gol 737-76N
A Gol 737-76N

[edit] Destinations in Brazil

North region


Central-West region


Northeast region


Southeast region


South region

[edit] International destinations

South America

All codes are IATA

[edit] Services

Gol uses web-based flight booking, and paperless tickets for flight booking.

On aircraft, Gol serves cereal bars, juice and soft drinks; no alcohol is served. [3]

[edit] Fleet

Gol Fleet
Aircraft Total Passengers
Routes Notes
Boeing 737-300 14 Regional routes,Medium routes Will be replaced by 737-700 models
Boeing 737-700 31(40 orders to replace of the 737-300 of Gol and Varig) Regional routes,Medium routes,International routes Will replace the 737-300
Boeing 737-800 38 (161 orders) Medium routes,International routes
Total number of aircraft 82(232 orders)
Updated: March 2008

Gol has no bussiness class.

[edit] Incidents and accidents

Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 about to collide with a private jet
Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 about to collide with a private jet

On 29 September 2006, Flight 1907, a Boeing 737-800 SFP(Short Field Performance) with registration PR-GTD disappeared from radar while flying over the center-western state of Mato Grosso en route from Manaus to Brasília. The aircraft collided in mid-air with an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet, near the town of Matupá,[8][9] 470 miles (760 km) south of Manaus.[10] The Legacy jet landed safely at a Brazilian Air Force base with damage to the tail and left winglet. Gol has confirmed that 148 passengers and 6 crew members were on board. The wreckage was found in the Amazon, and there were no survivors.[11]

[edit] Gallery

[edit] External links

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[edit] References