I know you said your friends were close to the airport, but Sao Paulo is so huge that that is sort of relative. Traffic can be horrendous there.

This past December I had a late evening Delta return flight from there, and was at a friend's house in central Sao Paulo. They thought we could get to the airport in "...maybe an hour and a half, maybe better". Fortunately I asked to get there really early. The drive took over THREE hours of bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go, with the motorcycles roaring through in the "third lane" at every opportunity. We did make the flight, but it was nerve racking.

The airport itself was pretty wild. There weren't really lines, so much as crowds surging forward. Our plane gate got changed, but the announcements and signs were really unclear. I don't speak Portuguese, but can read some Italian and had hoped to piece my way through. Didn't work. The people working the gates and check-in had enough English and were willing to help. The problem was getting up to them to ask.

I wouldn't leave the airport, and would do all the check-in steps I could first before visiting with the friends at the airport. And then I'd allow lots of extra time for getting to the gate and boarding.

GRU was not as complicated as some Chinese airports, but very close.

Romelle