Brazil's Gol airline began Monday, September 25, daily flights to Chile hoping to expand the market but not compete with Chile's flag carrier LAN, rated the best and most competitive airline in Latinamerica.

The cheap-tickets, no-thrills airline has two daily flights between Rio do Janeiro and Santiago with stops in São Paulo and Buenos Aires and another between Florianópolis and Chile's capital calling in Porto Alegre and Buenos Aires.

"We don't know exactly what our share of the market in the future is going to be, because we want the market to change, and therefore can't anticipate the future market. What we do want is that those who have never flown before begin using air transport," said Tarcísio Gargioni, Gol's vice president of Marketing and Services.

Gol also has plans to expand its low cost operations with two non stop daily flights between Santiago and São Paulo before the end of the year.

"Our goal is to fly 200.000 passengers on our first year of operations in Chile", added Gargioni.

"We're offering the option of flying in a more simple company, but new aircrafts, with quality service and for less money. Travellers can also choose another more sophisticated company and pay more. That is why we are not competing with LAN Chile, it's two different models of addressing the market," insisted Gargioni.

Gol Intelligent airlines are convinced of success in Chile as has happened in "Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay" and have plans to continue expanding.

Gargioni said the company has no plans to fly to Europe or United States, since this would mean leaving the continent and flying other aircrafts, "our low costs are sustained on having an only model of aircraft".

The company has a fleet of 54 aircrafts, flies to over fifty destinations in Brazil and seven international.

Mercopress