GOL Announces Purchase Order for 60 Boeing 737 MAX Aircrafts
01-Oct-2012 GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes S.A. (BM&FBovespa: GOLL4 and NYSE: GOL), (S&P: B, Fitch: B+, Moody`s: B3), the largest low-cost and low-fare airline in Latin America, hereby announces an additional purchase order for 60 Boeing 737 MAX Aircrafts from Boeing, which will be delivered as of 2018. The Company will use the new aircraft mainly to renew its fleet in the future. This decision is in line with GOL's commitment to increasing its operational efficiency with a young, modern and safe fleet.
Since the beginning of GOL's operations, this is the largest order by a single airline in terms of aircraft numbers in the history of South American aviation. As a result, the Company, a pioneer in the use of numerous advances in the Boeing 737-700 and 737-800 family, will be responsible for launching the 737 MAX in South America and one of the first airlines in the world to operate the new aircraft.
The Boeing 737 MAX is being developed by the U.S. manufacturer and the help of GOL's captains, engineers and technicians. The new aircraft will be equipped with LEAP-1B engines, made by CFM International, and advanced winglet technology. These improvements will reduce fuel consumption and polluting emissions by up to 13% in comparison with Boeing 737 NGs. The new aircraft will also be able to take off carrying more weight and will have increased flight autonomy.
With the 737 MAX, passengers will continue to enjoy greater comfort with the new Sky Interior cabin layout, currently installed in 15 GOL aircraft, which is equipped with LED lighting systems with eight different colors and intensity, new, bigger and more accessible overhead baggage compartments, more space between buttons and modified internal window frames to improve the angle of vision.
"The decision to order the Boeing 737 MAX is in line with our commitment to maintaining a modern and safe fleet that will allow us to sustain our competitive advantage in the future", declared Paulo Kakinoff, GOL's CEO. "The new aircraft will have one of the best cost-benefit ratios in the market due to its unique operational economy, so it is also fully compatible with our low-cost model."
GOL has maintained a partnership with the U.S. manufacturer since the beginning of its operations and is its main South American customer and one of the five largest customers of the 737 family in the world, allowing it to be one of the 737 MAX launch customers.
The commitment with Boeing has already resulted in several innovations, such as the development of 737-800 NG Short Field Performance aircraft to operate on short runways. GOL launched this model and was consequently able to operate a commercial shuttle service to and from Santos Dumont airport in Rio de Janeiro with a bigger aircraft than any other airline. The next step is the launch of 737 MAX Short Field Performance, a technology developed for GOL. The Company's fleet plan until 2014 remains the same, as published in the 2Q12 earnings release.