If you’re spending the weekend in Rio, see where your flight will go – Lugares por Onde Ando

2023-10-02 19:49:00

Runway at Santos Dumont Airport, located in the central region of Rio de Janeiro (Photo: Alexandre Macieira/Riotur)

Go to Rio during the weekend next week (11th, Wednesday, celebration of the creation of Mato Grosso do Sul, and 12th, Thursday, Brazil’s Patron Saint’s Day), and bought the ticket well in advance. If this is your case, be careful because the disembarkation location may no longer be the same as it was in your travel plan from the airport to the hotel.

If the ticket marked Santos Dumont Airport, now your arrival can be via Galeão Airport. The process of reducing flights at Santos Dumont Airport, which is located in the center of Rio de Janeiro, and expanding frequencies at Galeão International Airport, in the north of the capital of Rio de Janeiro, began this Sunday, 1st. The distance from Galeão to the neighborhoods of Ipanema and Copacabana, for example, is 23 km.

It means that your journey will be more expensive, in addition to the fact that Santos Dumont Airport has a much simpler exit. The tip is to look for information on your airline’s official media, because some flights are being automatically rescheduled for landing at Galeão, and there is always a risk of the passenger not being notified or not having access to the notice in advance.

According to the National Civil Aviation Secretariat of the Ministry of Ports and Airports, the reduction in flights at Santos Dumont Airport follows public policy guidelines that established a maximum limit of ten million passengers at the terminal in 2023. Galeão there should be a 56.5% increase in departure operations, compared to September and December last year, with more national connections that will feed the lines for international travel.

Opened in February 1952, Galeão Airport was once the main gateway for Brazilians to leave abroad (Photo: Reproduction)

Brazil has a way out, Galeão – Opened in February 1952, Galeão was once Brazil’s main airport, but is currently only the seventh in the country in terms of movement. In the 1970s and 1980s, Brazilian citizens embarked abroad from Galeão, so much so that there is a famous phrase attributed to maestro Antônio Carlos Jobim, after whom the airport is named, about our chronic hopelessness in relation to the problems of Brazilian politics. “Who said that Brazil has no way out? Yes, there is: Galeão”.

With the flight transfers, the intention is to strengthen Galeão Airport. The expectation is to make the concession of the Antônio Carlos Jobim international terminal more attractive to the private sector. Faced with the emptying, at the beginning of 2022 the company Changi Airports, from the Asian group Changi, announced the withdrawal of the airport concession and the return of its administration to the federal government.