puls

Didn't see this mentioned on the forum yet, but I was cruising past .bomb and I ran across this:
http://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/Mark...spx?ItemId=635

Looks like the partnership starts on April 1st, just in time for TAM to have left for oneworld in the LAN merger. A sign of things to come?

787fan

Excellent news ..... now if only star is willing to induct both azul and avianca brasil

bse118

That's interesting, especially given that Avianca Brazil is supposedly joining Star Alliance sometime this year.

Palal

Avianca Brazil is still not in *A, so it rules them out. Azul has far fewer flights than JJ does, so this will be a bit of a downgrade. Oh, and of course no EQMs with Azul.

UA Insider

Hi everyone,

As you've seen on united.com, Azul is indeed becoming a MileagePlus partner carrier. In addition to earning miles, you'll also be able to book award travel on Azul, starting April 1. Initially, Azul award flights will be bookable through United Reservations.

Per this statement from December, Star Alliance will welcome Avianca Brazil in 2014.

Aaron Goldberg
Sr. Manager - Customer Experience Planning
United Airlines

jsl42

Hi Aaron/Social Media peeps,

On the Azul MileagePlus partner page, there is an asterisk in the base miles column but the asterisk isn't defined anywhere. Can we have some clarification?

Muito obrigado,
jsl42

audio-nut

How many routes do AD have from GRU and GIG? The route map looks like 2 each.

mahasamatman

From GRU, AD services Araçatuba, Araxá, Bauru/Arealva, Belém-Val de Cans, Belo Horizonte-Confins, Belo Horizonte-Pampulha, Brasília, Campinas-Viracopos, Cascavel, Criciúma, Cuiabá, Curitiba-Afonso Pena, Foz do Iguaçu, Governador Valadares, Ipatinga, Joinville, Londrina, Manaus, Marília, Maringá, Porto Alegre, Porto Velho, Presidente Prudente, Recife, Resende, Rio Branco, Rio de Janeiro-Santos Dumont, Rondonópolis, Salvador da Bahia, São José do Rio Preto, Uberlândia, Varginha, Vitória.

From GIG, AD services Campinas-Viracopos, Cuiabá, Fortaleza, Navegantes.

(Note: Wikipedia is not authoritative, but is usually pretty reliable.)

audio-nut

That's pretty impressive. I'm not sure what I was looking at.. Good score United.

steveo

Does this mean that United will start a flight from the US to Belo Horizonte?

bosnyc

Probably wishful thinking, but maybe this is a precursor to a B6-UA tie-in, a la the one just ending between AA and B6. B6 could provide *A connections to JFK.

WineCountryUA

non-stop -- very doubtful

iquitos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Neeleman

jsl42

Not sure what whoever edited the Wikipedia page you cite was smoking (maybe something from the jungle near Rio Branco??), but the Azul website (www.voeazul.com.br) lists many fewer non-stop destinations from United's international gateways:

São Paulo (Guarulhos): Porto Alegre, RS; Curitiba, PR; Araçatuba, SP; Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Galeão); Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Santos Dumont); Belo Horizonte, MG (Confins); Belo Horizonte, MG (Pampulha); Ipatinga, MG; Brasilia, DF; Salvador, BA.

Rio de Janeiro (Galeão): São Paulo, SP (Guarulhos); Campinas, SP; Belo Horizonte, MG (Confins); Recife, PE.

Clearly, this does not match TAM or Gol's network from GRU or GIG. While it's nice there will be new United partners in Brazil, this still represents a downgrade. When Avianca Brasil/Oceanair comes online later this year, there should be some more non-stop Star Alliance options from United's Brazilian gateways, but as it is now, unless you're heading to large cities in the south or southeast, the capital, or Salvador or Recife you're looking at connections. Or an overland transfer from GRU to Campinas, where Azul is based.

WineCountryUA

The Azul interactive route map suggests pretty decent coverage but much is out of the city airports not the international airports (such as VCP vs GRU)