São Paulo Congonhas – Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont, in Brazil, is the busiest domestic route in Latin America, with more than 375 weekly flights, distributed among the three main Brazilian airlines, Azul Linhas Aéreas Brasileiras (AD/AZU), GOL Linhas Aéreas (G3/GLO) and LATAM Brasil (LA/LAN).
Rio de Janeiro has three airports with commercial operations, being Rio de Janeiro Galeão (GIG/SBGL) the main one, having domestic and international connections from any country in the world. For its part, Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont (SDU/SBRJ) is located in the heart of the city, on the shores of Guanabara Bay, an Atlantic Ocean bay that surrounds all of Rio de Janeiro.
Santos Dumont
As you can see in the graph, Santos Dumont airport had around 2300 flights during the last 30 days, being almost 1600 to/from São Paulo Congonhas. ANAC Brasil, the National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil, ordered a drastic reduction of flights at Santos Dumont in 2024, with only routes of less than 400 kilometers being permitted. Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Campinas and São Paulo Guarulhos are the other routes operated at Santos Dumont airport, also served by Azul, GOL and LATAM. Until early 2025, VoePass Linhas Aéreas had operations in Congonhas and Santos Dumont, in addition to those mentioned above, but stopped flying due to changes in its operational structure following the accident in Vinhedo involving one of its ATR 72-500s on August 9th, 2024.
Regarding its approach, as it is located in the center of the city, by either runway, leaves beautiful views of Rio de Janeiro, as the aircraft are aligned with the runway between 250 and 500 feet above the water once they pass the city limits. On the southern approach are the small hills of Copacabana, which forces the crew to turn towards the runway at approximately 350 feet, at an average speed of 130 knots.
Congonhas
With respect to São Paulo, the city has around 700 daily flights between its two main airports.
São Paulo Congonhas (CGH/SBSP), also located in the heart of the city, has a short runway of 1883 meters (550 meters longer than Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont), and about 280 daily flights. This airport is only authorized for domestic flights within Brazil, but with no distance limit. As you can see through our database, its longest route is São Paulo Congonhas – Fortaleza, which is 2376 kilometers, operated by Azul, GOL and LATAM.
During the past month, the busiest day at the airport was June 27th, with 284 departures and arrivals. On weekdays this number is usually maintained, dropping to about 210 flights on weekends.
São Paulo’s main airport is Guarulhos (GRU/SBGR), averaging 410 flights per day, including domestic and international connections.
São Paulo – Rio de Janeiro flights
Other airports in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and surrounding areas, such as Guarulhos, Campinas, Galeão and Jacarepaguá, are included.
AZUL LINHAS AÉREAS BRASILEIRAS
| From | To | Weekly flights | Aircraft |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campinas (VCP) | Rio de Janeiro (GIG) | 26 | A320neo/E195-E2 |
| Campinas (VCP) | Rio de Janeiro (RRJ) | 16 | Cessna 208 |
| Campinas (VCP) | Rio de Janeiro (SDU) | 48 | Embraer 195/E195-E2 |
| São Paulo (CGH) | Rio de Janeiro (SDU) | 77 | Embraer 195 |
| São Paulo (GRU) | Rio de Janeiro (SDU) | 14 | Embraer 195 |
Rio de Janeiro Jacarepaguá (RRJ/SBJR) is Rio de Janeiro’s third airport, used only by small aircraft. Currently, Azul Linhas Aéreas is the only Brazilian carrier to have this type of aircraft in its fleet, offering flights to this airport from Belo Horizonte and Campinas, its main bases in Brazil. Belo Horizonte has about 30 weekly flights, while Campinas 16 flights a week.
In addition, as announced by the airline, on June 17th was the first flight to Santos Dumont airport with an Embraer E195-E2. The aircraft, with registration PS-ADG, arrived at SDU at 16:34 local time from Campinas covering flight AD5086. One hour later, the aircraft returned to Campinas airport.
As well as with the Cessna, Azul is the only Brazilian airline to have Embraer E195-E2s, which will be able to operate at Santos Dumont. Flights with these aircraft were made from/to Campinas.
GOL LINHAS AÉREAS
| From | To | Weekly flights | Aircraft |
|---|---|---|---|
| São Paulo (CGH) | Rio de Janeiro (SDU) | 156 | Boeing 737-700/800 |
| São Paulo (GRU) | Rio de Janeiro (GIG) | 37 | 737/738/7M8 |
LATAM AIRLINES
| From | To | Weekly flights | Aircraft |
|---|---|---|---|
| São Paulo (CGH) | Rio de Janeiro (SDU) | 143 | A319/A320/A20N |
| São Paulo (GRU) | Rio de Janeiro (GIG) | 60 | A319/A320/A21N |
| São Paulo (GRU) | Rio de Janeiro (SDU) | 14 | Airbus A319 |
São Paulo Congonhas – Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont
| Airline | Weekly flights | Aircraft |
|---|---|---|
| Azul Linhas Aéreas | 77 | Embraer 195 (118*) |
| GOL Linhas Aéreas | 156 | 737-700 (143*), 737-800 (186*) |
| LATAM Airlines | 143 | A319 (144*), A320 (180*) |
*Number of seats on each aircraft
According to our database, which you can see by clicking on these links (Rio de Janeiro SDU/SBRJ and Sao Paulo CGH/SBSP), GOL is the main airline in this market, offering 156 weekly flights, followed by LATAM with 143 and Azul with 77. This gives a total of 376 flights a week at the time of publication, about 55 daily flights.
The second main route within Latin America, in terms of weekly frequencies, is Bogotá El Dorado (BOG/SKBO) – Medellín José María Córdova (MDE/SKRG), in Colombia. It is not far behind CGH-SDU, as you can see in our database, with more than 300 weekly flights.
Soon on the blog, we will talk about the main route in different markets around the world, following with North America. In this market, two routes dispute the top, being one in Hawaii and the other on the west coast of the United States.
Cover photo: © fachetti_spotter – JetPhotos (Rio de Janeiro Santos Dumont Airport)
