SAO PAULO, Brazil – Brazilian travelers incensed about an overbooked flight stormed a runway Wednesday to prevent a commercial jet from taking off, and a tourism industry leader said two months of chronic flight delays have been a “disaster” for tourism.
About 30 passengers with tickets from Sao Paulo to the northeastern city of Recife got out of a bus parked outside a Tam Linhas Aereas SA jet at one of Sao Paulo’s two airports, and surrounded the plane after the crew closed its door and the passengers feared they would not be let on, Brazil’s Globo TV reported.
Police removed the passengers from the tarmac, but the protest delayed the flight for about two hours, and was a repeat of similar incidents last week, when Brazilians invaded runways at several airports plagued by delays just before Christmas.
Leonel Rossi Jr., international affairs director for the Brazilian Travel Agency industry group, said the air travel chaos since late October has sent sales of tour packages plummeting by 15 percent just as the industry enters its busiest season.
Brazil is heading into high holidays, with children out of school until late January at the height of the South American summer. Because of the flight delays, many Brazilians are now considering driving instead of flying to vacation destinations.
Tour operators also fear foreigners who want to escape the cold winters of Europe and North America will be spooked away from Brazil by media images of travelers sleeping in airports while awaiting flights.
“Everyone saw the suffering of people at the airports,” Rossi said, calling the delays a “complete disaster.”
In the capital of Brasilia, Defense Minister Waldir Pires announced that authorities were banning overbooking in preparation for a new crush of air travel over the Jan. 1 holiday, one of the most popular in the country of 185 million.
Brazil’s air travel delays began about a month after a collision between a Gol airlines Boeing 737 and an Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet killed 154 passengers on Sept. 29. It was the country’s worst air disaster.
After the crash, air traffic controllers significantly slowed airline operations by following regulations to the letter in a “work-to-rule” protest to demand better pay and working conditions.
The air travel woes resurfaced on Dec. 19, when Sao Paulo’s domestic airport, the country’s busiest, shut down because of bad weather.
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