Brazilian Startup Itapemirim Now Has Five Airbus A320s
Brazilian startup Itapemirim Transportes Aereos has launched commercial operations with its fifth aircraft. This new airline aims to have a fleet of up to 50 planes in the near future, while it looks to grow within the Brazilian domestic market. What else has happened with Itapemirim during its first two months of operations? Let’s investigate further.
Itapemirim’s fifth aircraft
Itapemirim is a Brazilian airline that launched operations on June 29. It is the first of many Latin American startups that are currently in the early days of operation. Some others may follow, like Ecuatoriana de Aviación in Ecuador and Ultra Air in Colombia.
The airline shows a mixed model of low-cost with legacy-like amenities, like free baggage for all travelers.
Itapemirim currently has five aircraft. On September 1, the airline announced in a statement that its fifth plane had begun flying commercially. The fleet is composed of Airbus A320-200 aircraft, according to ch-aviation’s database. It is 16.8 years old, on average.
The registrations of the five airplanes are PS-AAF, PS-ITA- PS-SFC, PS-SPJ, and PS-TCS. The latter is the one that recently started commercial operations.
Itapemirim’s Airbus A320 fleet has a capacity of 162 passengers. According to the airline, this configuration allows for more space between seats since it is 18 seats away from the maximum permitted capacity.
How many passengers have the airline carried?
Itapemirim has now flown for more than two months. So far, both the airline and Brazil’s Civil Aviation National Authority (ANAC) have published the stats of its first month of operations, July. And they differ a lot.
Itapemirim claims that in July, it carried 38,841 passengers on 423 flights. The airline added that it had a punctuality level of 77% and a load factor of 62%.
Moreover, Itapemirim announced on August 26 that it has already carried over 100,000 passengers and made more than 1000 flights since its inception.
Nevertheless, ANAC shows different data. The Brazilian authorities have said that Itapemirim had 425 flights in July but carried only 19,044 paid passengers. If that’s the case, Itapemirim’s load factor during its first month of operations was lower than 30%.
It is unclear why there’s a massive difference between the stats of the airline and ANAC. Simple Flying did a quick analysis of the stats provided by other airlines, like GOL and Azul, and then matched them up with ANAC’s numbers.
For instance, in 2021’s second quarter, GOL said it carried 2.9 million customers, and Azul said it had 4.48 million passengers. ANAC backs up this data by stating that GOL had 2.91 million passengers and Azul 4.40 million. Therefore, it is unclear why Itapemirim has twice the number of recorded passengers as ANAC.
What more can we expect from Itapemirim?
The airline is operating domestically, but in the future, it plans to fly to Europe.
Right now, Itapemirim flies to São Paulo Guarulhos, Brasilia, Belo Horizonte, Florianopolis, Fortaleza, Maceió, Natal, Recife, Rio de Janeiro-Galeao, Porto Alegre, Porto Seguro, Salvador, and Curitiba.
Itapemirim expects to increase its domestic connectivity. It will also receive more airplanes in the mid-future. When Itapemirim was a startup, the idea was to begin operations with a fleet of 10 Airbus A320ceo.
