BRAZIL: Tourism Industry Fears Summer-long Crisis in Airports

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 13 2006 (IPS) - The southern hemisphere summer, which begins this month, is expected to be fraught with tension in Brazil’s tourism industry given the possibility of a worsening of the crisis facing the country’s airports, right when passenger travel is at its peak.

The crisis broke out nearly two months ago when air traffic controllers in Brasilia, the capital, began to stage work slow-downs to protest their lengthy hours, heavy workloads and low pay. They are also protesting suspicions that they were responsible for the worst crash in Brazilian history.

On Sept. 29, all 154 people aboard a passenger airliner died when it crashed in the Amazon jungle, after colliding in midair with a corporate jet.

Constant flight delays in the past seven weeks have already generated losses for airlines, hotels and other tourism industry sectors.

“The influx of guests has fallen around 20 percent, and the proportion of tourists coming in by car has increased,” Mirela Rios, assistant to the management at the Vela Branca Hotel in the city of Porto Seguro, told IPS.

Porto Seguro is in the northeastern state of Bahia, a tourism region with hundreds of miles of stunning beaches, many of which are still undeveloped. Bahia depends heavily on air traffic because of its distance from large cities. It is located 1,135 km from Rio de Janeiro by road and 1,557 km from Sao Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city.

During the year-end holidays and throughout the summer, Porto Seguro, one of Brazil’s leading tourist destinations, receives a heavy flow of visitors from Sao Paulo.

It also attracts many foreigners, especially from Argentina and Europe, who could be scared off by the delays, suspended flights and fears of potential risks of air travel in Brazil.

“Any accident at this point could be fatal to business,” said Roberto Dultra, president of the Brazilian Incoming Travel Organisation (BITO), which represents tour operators. But his main concern is “the constant delays,” not the possibility of another catastrophe, which he said is remote due to “Brazil’s recognised good flight safety record, and the accentuated care that flight controllers are taking now.”

However, the country’s airports are “operating at capacity,” and delays at one airport, even a smaller one, triggers a “domino effect” in the country’s air route network, he told IPS.

Significant losses have not yet been felt by international tour operators, but there has been great demand for information on the situation in Brazil’s airports, reflecting worries that could lead to group cancellations if the delays continue, said Dultra..

“There was a lack of planning, to avoid the crisis,” he argued. He also said there was “naivete,” in the tourism industry as well, in ignoring the risks, especially in the last four years, when air traffic has grown more than 20 percent a year on average, without being accompanied by investment in the air traffic control system.

Dultra pointed out that Brazil “is heavily dependent on the airplane” given its huge size and the scarcity of railroads, good highways and water transport.

The tension and concern will continue, since the measures adopted by the government are merely “palliative” and because it takes more than two years to train an air traffic controller, he said.

Air force commander Brigadier-General Luiz Carlos Bueno announced Wednesday in a public hearing in the lower house of Congress that 160 new graduates would be hired as air traffic controllers in 2007 and another 160 the following year.

But the trade union says 500 air traffic controllers are needed. It is also demanding that the military hand over control of aviation in Brazil to civilian authorities, as a first step towards solving a number of problems. Of the country’s 2,783 air traffic controllers, 79.5 percent belong to the armed forces, and they all work under the ultimate authority of the Defence Ministry.

Despite the high degree of specialisation, responsibility and stress involved in the job, it is not well-paid. The starting salary is just 750 dollars a month, and the highest paid air traffic controllers earn only twice that. Military regulations stand in the way of improving salaries, because air traffic controllers have the rank of sergeant and cannot earn more than officers.

An investigation by the office that monitors government expenses blamed the crisis on poor management and a reduction of investment in the air traffic control system, according to a report released Tuesday in Brasilia. As a result of fiscal adjustments over the past few years, the funds set aside for that purpose in the budget were not all used.

Defence Minister Waldir Pires denied that a shortage of funds was to blame for the current crisis, and pointed instead to management problems that affected “maintenance of the system,” thus transferring the blame to the Aeronautics agency.

But Brigadier-General Bueno told lawmakers that the air traffic control system’s electronic equipment is outdated and has not been upgraded for six years.

At any rate, it is clear that the air traffic control system has not kept up with the expansion in air traffic in Brazil. Last year, more than 43 million passengers took domestic flights, 17.9 percent more than in 2004, while 6.8 million passengers flew in from abroad, a 10.5 percent increase.

The Tourism Ministry forecasts a total of 54 million domestic passengers this year and 65 million in 2007, along with nine million foreign visitors.

The fast-growing tourism industry, meanwhile, generated 310,000 new jobs this year, for a total of 1.1 million, while bringing in 6.3 billion dollars in foreign exchange.