Brazilian airport eyes more European and US services, writes Graham Dunn
Brazil’s Belo Horizonte International Airport (BH Airport) is looking to attract more routes to Europe and North America as it continues to see strong growth ahead.
The airport boosted passenger numbers to over 13 million last year and has flights to over 70 destinations. “We are strong in domestic and we want to be strong in international as well,” said the airport’s Head of Airline Market, Clayton Begido.
“Europe is a hotspot because we have just one flight with TAP [Air Portugal] to Lisbon. That’s not enough,” he said, adding the carrier is also looking to add more services to the United States as it is a major market for Brazil.
“These are the two main desires that we have, but we are growing Latin America in general [as well]. We have more than nine destinations. But for the 20 million population [in the state of Minas Gerais] we have, it is not enough.”
Begido believes the airport’s on-time performance – the airport featured among the top 10 medium-sized airports for on-time performance last year according to Cirium – and short connection times are an attraction for airlines. “A lot of airlines choose us because of our operational performance,” he said, while also noting there is plenty of scope to expand as BH Airport has an annual passenger capacity of 32 million.
While Minas Gerais, which accounts for around 10% of Brazilian GDP, has strong business demand, Begido sees growing tourism activity.
“We have never seen as much foreign tourism as we find right now. We have a long way to go,” he added, but pointed to growing recognition from government and stakeholders in the country of the value of developing tourism in the country.
