Gol Transportes Aéreos

SSA-GIG-SSA modern 737-800 both legs. Outbound flight departed 20 minutes late but arrived on time. Inbound flight left Rio 45 minutes late and arrived 20 minutes later than scheduled. Inflight service friendly but basic: cereal bars on outbound flight pretzels inbound. Limited choice of minerals. All in all Gol is a very good no-frills airline.

Fortaleza-Rio roundtrip. Basic no-frills flights. Tiny sandwiches soft drinks juice coffee water included. Biggest gripe was the fact that while the airline e-mailed my original itinerary to me they did not notify me when my original flight to Rio (a non-stop flight) stopped flying a couple of weeks before I was to depart. Unbeknownst to me I was put on a flight through Brasilia (fortunately leaving about the same time as the original flight). I learned of the schedule change only because I happened to look at the airline's Web site to confirm whether they were taking into account daylight savings time in Rio. I did ask them to send my revised itinerary via e-mail to make it official but they did not. Other than that the flights were fine. On the return we were put on a plane operated by Flex Airlines apparently a low-cost subsidiary. Once inside it was pretty indistinguishable from the Gol flight in which I had flown to Rio.

Sao Paulo to Rio. Check in staff could not speak English at all but he impressed by running around to find his English speaking colleague just to brief me the boarding details. FAs could fairly communicate in English. Snacks and drinks were provided on this short flight. FAs pushed the trolley up and down to check if any passengers want additional snacks or drinks or not. Departure and arrival on time. Baggage arrived on the belt quick enough. Rio (GRU) to Iguazu (IGU) via Curitiba. Check in was smooth. Once on board FAs friendly and they can speak English very well. Similar to previous flight that they pushed the trolley up and down to top up snacks and drinks. Transit in Curitiba we were not allowed to disembark. However they still kept the turnaround time short at only 30 min. Arrival at Iguazu no problem at all. Good value good service.

SSA-BSB-SSA. Both legs in 737-800. Outbound flight on time inbound flight delayed for half an hour in BSB waiting for a connecting flight to arrive. Arrival in SSA nearly on time though. Aircraft spotlessly clean on both legs two drinks and aforementioned cereal bars served with a smile (IFAs will give you extra cereal bars if you ask.) Check-in staff extremely helpful and friendly. Just three stars though due to the fact that the seats in the 737-800s are rock hard even if their pitch is good for a low-cost airline.

SSA-Recife Recife-Brazilia Brazilia-GIG. 2 of the 3 flights delayed on departure but only one really late on arrival. Planes clean and new. Pleasant crew. 2 drinks offered (and the cereal bars mentioned by another comment!) despite short flights. No problem with the on-line booking despite being non brazilian. Check in very quick in the different airports.

GIG-SSR Generally a fair service for such a short flight. The fact that GOL is not accepting foreign credit cards for online booking and only accepts Amex for purchase at the ticket counter it´s absolutely not acceptable for an airline that offers international flights !

GIG-SSR Generally a fair service for such a short flight. The fact that GOL is not accepting foreign credit cards for online booking and only accepts Amex for purchase at the ticket counter it´s absolutely not acceptable for an airline that offers international flights !

Sao Paulo (CGH) to Rio de Janeiro (SDU). Boeing 737-800 quite new and good. There were serving with soft drinks and snacks for the flight for 40-45 minutes. Check-in and boarding was efficient and very smooth.

Sao Paulo (CGH) to Rio de Janeiro (SDU). Boeing 737-800 quite new and good. There were serving with soft drinks and snacks for the flight for 40-45 minutes. Check-in and boarding was efficient and very smooth.

IGU via CWB to CGH and connecting to SDU. All flights on new aircraft arrived on time. Seats were comfortable esp. for these three short flights. Unlike with European LCCs the airfare was not really low cost and complimentary snacks and drinks were served (by friendly F/As). Based on this experience I can highly recommend GOL.