Brazil announces airline assistance package to mitigate sector's economic crisis

Brazil's Ministry of Infrastructure, via its official LinkedIn account, announced (18-Mar-2020) the government implemented a package of measures to "protect the Brazilian civil aviation sector from the impact of the coronavirus". The package seeks to prevent further impact to the sector. Around 85% of international and 50% of domestic services have been suspended due to the drop in demand. Minister of Infrastructure Tarcisio de Freitas stated: "The government is being proactive with problems which might occur from the crisis and is working to avoid lasting damages to Brazil's aviation sector". The three measures adopted are:

• Postponing ATM fee payments for four months from Mar-2020;
• Postponing airport fee payments;
• Postponing carriers' passenger refund obligations and exemption from penalty fees.

Minister Freitas added: The government is trying to act ahead of problems which could occur from the aviation sector's deepest economic crisis in history. We will work to avoid lasting damages in Brazil's aviation sector". He added that the focus will be "offer, solvency of the sector and continuity of services". [more - original PR - Portuguese]