|
 Beginning September 19, Brazilian airline TAM will start a new daily direct flight linking Rio to Miami. The new offering will be operated by a Boeing 767-300 aircraft configured for the business and economy classes and with a capacity for up to 205 passengers.
The flight will leave Confins airport, in Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais state), at 7:30 p.m., arriving at 8:25 p.m. at Tom Jobim International Airport (Galeão airport), in Rio de Janeiro, and then take off at 11:05 p.m. and fly directly to the Miami International Airport in Florida, landing at 6:30 am the following day.
The return journey will leave Miami at 10:05 p.m. flying directly to Rio de Janeiro (Galeão airport), where it will arrive at 7:10 am and take off at 9:30 am to land in Belo Horizonte (Confins airport) at 10:35 am.
This will be TAM's fourth daily flight to Miami and the only one without connections or stops from Rio de Janeiro. In all, there will be 28 flights weekly between Brazil and Miami.
At present, there are two daily flights from São Paulo (Guarulhos airport) to Miami, and on Sundays, one of them makes a stop in Salvador (Bahia state), both on the way to Miami and on the flight back. In addition, there is a daily flight from Manaus (Amazonas state) to Miami. All flights make connections with incoming and outgoing flights.
"Rio de Janeiro is the second-largest Brazilian market, able to make this new flight a great success,," said Paulo Castello Branco, TAM's Vice-President of Planning and Alliances.
Gol Plans
Meanwhile, the other major Brazilian Airline, Gol, announced that it's suspending quarterly dividends for the remainder of 2008.
Gol has paid 664.7 million Brazilian reais (US$ 417.8 million) in dividends to its shareholders since 2004. Given the current environment for the airline industry, the Board believes suspending dividends is in the Company and shareholders' best interests, as it will allow Gol to employ cash to fund investments and improve credit ratios.
Suspending dividends is one of many strategies the Company is employing to offset higher fuel prices and provide management with the necessary flexibility to continue making investments, including Gol's fleet renewal program, recent adjustments to the fleet plan, integration of Gol and Varig operations and the implementation of a new ticket sales system.
"The Company is taking the necessary steps to set the stage for the next phase of growth, in line with our strategy of profitable expansion through our low-cost structure," said Constantino de Oliveira Junior, Gol's president and CEO.
The 2008 dividend policy forecasted fixed quarterly dividend payments of 0.18 real (US$ 0.11) per share for both common and preferred shares. The company is committed to distributing a minimum dividend of 25% of the year's net profit, and, if necessary, will issue a supplemental dividend payment at year-end to meet the minimum dividend as required by Brazilian Corporate Law.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
