South American Low-Cost Carriers Expanding Rapidly

Brazil´s Gol is flying high. Since it took off in 2001 with just half a dozen planes and seven destination cities, Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes airlines is proving itself a worthy emulator of celebrated budget trailblazers elsewhere.

Brazil´s first low-cost, low-fare airline, which flies planes with a distinctive orange fuselage and is known as Gol, now boasts 30 jetliners and travels to 40 destinations in Brazil and one in Argentina.

And Gol, which means goal, is not alone. In Uruguay, Argentina and Mexico, similar low-fare airlines are either up and running or are revving their engines for takeoff, industry experts said.

Air Madrid recently began flying to seven Latin American destinations from Spain, while JetBlue and Spirit are expanding into Latin America later this year.

Gol´s chief executive, Constantino de Oliveira Jr., sought to create that affordable travel in Brazil by "taking a bit of Southwest, a bit of Ryanair, a bit of JetBlue and easyJet and tropicalizing them for the Brazilian market." Ryanair and easyJet are well-known European budget carriers, while Southwest and JetBlue are prominent in the United States.

He went for simple sandwiches, electronic tickets only and undercut rivals on prices. The fact that many flights took off in the middle of the night or stopped several times before reaching their final destinations wasn´t a concern for passengers, some of whom previously experienced long-distance travel by spending days jammed in buses.

"Around 10, 11 percent of our passengers are flying on planes for the first time in their life," Oliveira said. "People think a low-cost airline is for poor people. But it isn´t. It´s for people who have an eye for competitive prices."