Gol Transportes Aéreos

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Gol Linhas Aéreas

IATA G3	ICAO GLO	Callsign Gol
Founded		2000
Hubs		Congonhas Domestic Airport Santos Dumont Airport Galeão International Airport Brasília international Airport Salvador Airport Fortaleza Airport Porto Alegre Airport Recife International Airport Curitiba Airport
Frequent flyer program		None
Member lounge		None
Alliance		None
Fleet size		65
Destinations		57
Headquarters		São Paulo, Brazil
Key people		Constantino Oliveira Júnior
Website: http://www.voegol.com/

Gol Transportes Aéreos is a low-cost airline based in São Paulo, Brazil. Gol is the second largest airline in Brazil with 37% of the Brazilian domestic market and 11% of the international market as of August 2006. It operates a growing domestic and international scheduled network. Its main bases are Congonhas Domestic Airport, São Paulo and Santos Dumont Regional Airport, Rio de Janeiro. Gol also has hubs at Galeão - Antônio Carlos Jobim International Airport, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília International Airport, Salvador Airport, Fortaleza Airport, Porto Alegre Airport, Guararapes International Airport, Recife and Afonso Pena International Airport, Curitiba.

1 History
2 Services
3 Fleet
4 Accidents
5 External links

[edit] History

The airline was established in 2000 and started operations on 15 January 2001. It is a subsidiary of the Brazilian conglomerate Grupo Aurea, which has other transport interests including Brazil's largest long-distance bus company. Grupo Aurea in turn is owned by the Constantino family. Gol's unprecedented low fares revolutionized the domestic Brazilian air travel market. As of 2004, Gol had carried 11,600,000 passengers, and constituted 20% of the Brazilian air travel market. On 24 June 2004 Gol launched simultaneous initial public offerings on the New York and São Paulo stock exchanges. It is now owned by AeroPar Participações (77%), Venture (17.6%) and American International Group (5.4%) and employs 7,250 staff. The growth in Gol's stock price made the Constantino family a member of the Forbes Magazine billionaire list in 2005. In 2007, Gol will began a code-share with TAP Portugal, what will open the European market to the Brazilian airline, and the internal Brazilian market to the Portuguese airline (the biggest foreign airline in Brazil)

[edit] Services

Gol operates services to the following scheduled domestic destinations (as of December 2006): Aracaju, Araraquara, Belém, Belo Horizonte, Boa Vista, Brasília, Campina Grande, Campinas, Campo Grande, Caxias do Sul, Chapecó, Cuiabá, Curitiba, Florianópolis, Fortaleza, Foz do Iguaçu, Goiânia, Ilhéus, Imperatriz, João Pessoa, Joinville, Juazeiro do Norte, Londrina, Macapá, Maceió, Manaus, Maringá, Natal, Navegantes, Palmas, Petrolina, Porto Alegre, Porto Seguro, Porto Velho, Recife, Ribeirão Preto, Rio Branco, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Santarém, São José do Rio Preto, São Luís, São Paulo, Teresina, Uberlândia and Vitória.

International scheduled destinations: Asunción, Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Lima, Montevideo, Rosario, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Santiago. Gol has received approval to initiate operations to Mexico, and a Code-share agreement with TACA to San Salvador. Rumors have that negotiations are under way for its own route to Panama City as well as to Caracas, Bogotá and Aruba.

[edit] Fleet

The Gol fleet includes the following aircraft (as of December 2006):

5 Boeing 737-800 (Ordered)

[edit] Accidents

Main article: Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907

On 29 September 2006, Flight 1907, a Boeing 737-800 with registration PR-GTD disappeared from radar while flying over the center-western state of Mato Grosso en route from Manaus to Brasília. The aircraft collided in mid-air with an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet, near the town of Matupá,^[1]^[2] 470 miles south of Manaus.^[3] The Legacy jet landed safely at a Brazilian Air Force base with damage to the tail and left winglet. Gol has confirmed that 148 passengers and 6 crew members were on board. The wreckage was found in the Amazon, and there were no survivors.^[4]

Thus far, it has been found that:^[5]

The control tower at São José dos Campos authorized the Legacy to fly at a 37,000 feet altitude, which put it in collision route with Flight 1907
The Legacy's transponder stopped working.
The Legacy lost communication with Cindacta-1 (Brasília's air traffic control center)
The Brasilia Area Control Center failed to warn Flight 1907 about the Legacy's presence

The aircraft, a new Short Field Performance variant^[6]^[7] of the 737-800 model had been delivered to Gol on September 12, 2006.^[8]^[9]