|
 Brazil's largest airline TAM and American aircraft manufacturer Boeing announced today conclusion of a pending deal, after a four-months negotiation, for four Boeing 777-300ER (Extended Range) jetliners.
TAM, which flies both domestic and international routes, first announced its intention to acquire the 777-300ERs in October. This successful conclusion of negotiations will make TAM the first Latin American carrier to operate the popular 777-300ER.
TAM received two of three MD-11 jets in February, which the airline will use on trans-Atlantic flights, prior to receiving the 777-300ERs.
The recently concluded 777 contract with the airline also includes purchase rights for four additional 777-300ERs. The four new airplanes were previously listed as "unidentified" on Boeing's Commercial Orders and Deliveries website.
"This contract is an important step for TAM's future growth in the long-distance international market, allowing the airline more flexibility and larger capacity on these routes," said TAM President Marco Antonio Bologna.
"TAM's order reaffirms why the 777 family of airplanes is preferred throughout the industry, and has garnered 67 percent of the market since launch," said John Wojick, vice president-Sales, Latin America and the Caribbean, Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
The fuel-efficient 777-300ER is the world's largest long-range twin-engine jetliner and is capable of carrying approximately 370 passengers in TAM's three-class configuration, flying up to 7,880 nautical miles (14,594 kilometers).
The 777-300ER is powered by General Electric GE90-115B engines, the world's most powerful commercial jet engines.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.