Proverbial

These days I cringe whenever I see a news piece start with “Judge John Doe from São Paulo’s XXth Federal Court today determined (…)”. Why? Things like this (.br):

Judge Ronald Carvalho Filho, from São Paulo’s Federal Court’s 22th Judgeship, determined this monday that all flights operating with Fokker-100 and Boeing 737 aircrafts in Congonhas airport (south side of São Paulo) be suspended starting this thursday.

Which is to say he’s just suspended almost every major airliner’s national flights going into the country’s busiest airport. The decision is based on a request for the interdiction of Congonhas’ main runway by the Public Ministry, due to constant closings caused by water build-up in rainy days. Yes, you read that right: thinking there were too many closings they called for a complete interdiction.

After hearing opinions from Anac (National Aviation Agency) and Infraero (the State company that manages the country’s public airports) officials, the judge ruled against the interdiction, but suspended operations with Fokker-100s and Boeing 737s, which can’t land on the secondary runway. I can’t even begin to imagine what that’ll mean for the already chaotic air traffic situation in Brazil, and for carriers who rely heavily on the “air bridge” between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro for the bulge of their profits.

What strikes me as very odd is that the Airbus 319 - roughly the same size of a 737 and much larger than a Fokker-100 - which Tam uses for most of its flights to Congonhas, is missing from the list. If that is true, it’ll be quite a boost for the company, which would then have a monopoly on flying from São Paulo to Rio, while carriers like Gol and Varig would have to fly from Guarulhos Int’l Airport, quite far from São Paulo’s downtown, or switch to smaller airplanes, such as the Fokker-50 or Embraer 145.