Brazil's JetBlue
Written: Nov 04 '02 (Updated Nov 04 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Cheap, expanding network, brand new planes, free snacks!
Cons: Website only in portuguese.
The Bottom Line: Brazil's biggest an best low-fare airline. Should be your first choice within Brazil!
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| Raf_K's Full Review: Gol Linhas Aereas |
Finally! I was wondering how long it would take for low-fare airlines to start up in South America's biggest country. The answer came about in mid-2001 when a Brazilian entrepreneur decided starting up an airline from scratch.
A few low-fare airlines had been precedently established in Brazil, with various degrees of failure: old planes, too few weekly flights and unreliability were a few constants with these early start-ups.
Gol appeared out of nowhere, much like its cousin JetBlue in the US. A great number of brand new planes were bought and a hub system was chosen. The idea was to open up the skies to people who would have otherwise had no other alternative than enduring sometimes gruelling 24-hour long bus rides.
Gol operates a fleet of 15 state-of-the-art 737-700s and serves an ever-expanding network of over 20 destinations in Brazil from its hub in Sao Paulo - Congonhas airport.
BOOKINGS
Bookings can be made over the phone (Brazil only), through a travel agent (Brazil only) or, more simply through the internet.
Their website has one major flaw: it is only in portuguese! I cannot understand how an airline, even though domestic, can not have a site in English these days....
Anyway, you can always work around this problem by using a translator website (babel.altavista.com for instance). Plus, the website is quite intuitive and user-friendly.
You simply choose the departure city and destination. The system will then look up for fares available. The great thing about the system is that unlike many budget airlines, Gol enables you to search for connecting flights which cost less than 2 separate legs would.
Once you choose your fares and proceed to pay you will be able to choose your seats! That's another great feature often not available on low fare airlines. Like most others you then just input your credit card details and print the confirmation page (you'll also receive an e-mail).
CHECK-IN
As they have many flights, check in is crowded, but orderly and efficient. You are handed a boarding pass with your pre-assigned seat number written on it.
Boarding is done by row numbers in order to avoid queues.
INFLIGHT
The flight crew is corteous throughout the flight. Contrary to most domestic flights in Brazil, all the announcements onboard were made in both English and Portuguese.
My biggest surprise was when we were actually served a free snack even though this was a 1-hour flight on a budget airline. Food consisted of a small sandwich, soft drinks and a candy bar.
The seats weren't very wide, and leg room isn't great, but you'd be a fool to expect wide seats on a budget flight: their flights range from 1 to 2 hours at most in duration so no one will get deep venal thrombosis...
The FAs were helpful and looked quite smart in their uniforms.
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I wasn't expecting much more than a cheap flight, but was definitely blown away by this experience. Top notch service allied with best fares are hard to come by. That's the reason why JetBlue is rapidly expanding in the States and the same applies to Gol in Brazil: they've already become Brazil's 3rd biggest airline!
I would recommend Gol as a first choice for anyone considering to fly domestically in Brazil. Buying tickets with them is often even cheaper than using the well-known Varig Brazil airpass (5 flight coupons for U$ 500).
Their Portuguese-only website is a challenge that's worth trying to overcome for now. Hopefully they'll have an English version in the near future.
www.voegol.com.br
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Raf_K
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Member: Rafael K
Location: London, UK
Reviews written: 101
Trusted by: 48 members
About Me:
Back after a long work-inflicted absence.
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