After saying goodbye to Tabata, I found a seat to take in the pretty busy GOL lounge. The lounge is centered around the buffet, which I have to say was quite nice considering it is a domestic lounge, and pretty much everyone with a Premium economy ticket could access to it (I upgraded mine for 160 Brasilian Reals, about 39 Euros). Back then, GOL had a partnership with Delta, and to some extent with AF/KLM also. While the DL partnership included lounge access for DL Elites, I could not recall if this was the case for AF/KL Elite members. The lounge was however pretty crowded in this sunday morning...
I've found the food to be pretty good for breakfast and stayed about 25 minutes. Note that the lounge has restrooms inside, and maybe also showers if I recall correctly.
GOL domestic lounge GRU airport
The buffet was quite good and various for a domestic lounge
Outside views from the lounge
Departure board
As it was my first time in GRU, I left the lounge at 9:15 to make sure I would get to my gate early enough.
The gate area, just like the terminal was pretty busy. I am not sure what are the Brazilian standards for air travel, but usually, Sunday morning is a low period in European and US airports, but that was not the case here.
Gate to Foz de Iguaçu
I arrived at the gate around 9:20 and queued in the "priority boarding lane". GOL organized back then the boarding in 4 different groups, and despite the crowd at the gate, I felt it was surprisingly organized.
The group 1 (most right lane) was for elderly, disabled passengers and passengers with infants or requiring assistance. The second lane, where I was, was for premium economy passengers, GOL elites + Delta/Air France/KLM Elites too (back then, now I don't think this is the case anymore as DL withdrew their investment in GOL). The third lane was for passengers without carry-on trolley and finally the fourth lane was the general boarding.
Edit: After checking on the GOL website today, it appears that AF/KLM passengers in business or first class also have access to the lounge when connecting to GOL. It does not seem that flying in economy and being an AF/KLM elite plus would give you access to the lounge. The lounge has also several partnerships with Priority pass, dragon key, lounge pass etc... There is no mention of any partnership for American Airlines elite flyers, but I thought that something was in the making after AA became partner with GOL following the withdrawal from Delta.
I got assigned the seat 2A for this one hour and half flight to Foz de Iguacu, Town located at the Brazilian side of the Iguaçu falls, separating Brazil, Argentina, and to some extent, Paraguay.
At 9:30, boarding started.
GOL G31170 – Sunday, February 17th, 2019
GRU - Sao Paolo Guarulhos Intl - 10:00
IGU - Foz de Iguaçu - 11:45
Boeing 737-800 – PR-GGY – Seat 02A, Premium economy, window
PR-GGY B737-800 in GRU
Premium economy on GOL, unfortunately, no Row 1 for me !
The flight was packed to the brim and I even heard at the rear of the aircraft a dog barking during the boarding and taxi (not sure about the size of the dog :-D) !
Premium economy on GOL consists mostly in having a seat the front of the cabin, with lounge access, priority boarding and a luggage allowance. The service on board seems to be the same as for the rest of the aircraft (as GOL does not have a business class cabin, at least on domestic flights).
Fortunately, I did also check in Sao Paolo my carry-on bag in addition to my large bag, so I did not have to use the overhead bins.
I guess the premium economy seats have a bit more legroom than at the back of the aircraft...
Nope, boarding was not yet over !
While the rest of the passengers was still boarding the aircraft, I did a bit of plane spotting outside, with most of the planes being from GOL.
GOL exclusively operates Boeing 737 and mostly the -800 variant. Nowadays they also have several 737MAX and 737-700.
We pushed back a few minutes past 10 and took-off about 20 minutes later. I fell asleep for sometime after take-off and woke-up during the snack service.
Plane spotting in GRU during the taxiing to the runway
Light snack + water. Better than nothing ! (other soft drinks were available though)
GOL route map, from 2019
We flew other large areas of agricultural land before being able to distinguish the Parana and Iguazu rivers...
Somewhere over the Brazilian state of Parana
Parana river / lake
Parana river. It seems now that we flew a bit over Paraguay before landing in Foz de Iguaçu (Paraguay is on the right side of the picture, while brazil os on the left, the river is a natural border. The same goes between Argentina (in the back of the picture) which has the river Iguazu as a natural border with Brazil)
I usually prefer to take an aisle seat when flying in coach, but when I am for the first time in a new country, I enjoy seating on a window seat, and that was the case here.
We landed in Foz de Iguaçu right on time at 11:45 and disembarked by stairs on the tarmac.
Foz de Iguaçu airport (IGU)
The airport terminal certainly has seen better days !
PR-GGY in IGU
Foz de Iguaçu (IGU) airport terminal
The luggage claim area was very small and consisted in one main belt with plenty of advertisements for entertainment and stores, mostly in neighbouring Paraguay. I later understood that this area of Paraguay was tax-free (or much lower taxes on goods). If I had more time, maybe I would have gone to Ciudad del Este, the Paraguayan town right across the border, so I could have got an extra stamp on my passport from a new country, but the main point of my visit here was to see the Iguazu falls.
Luggage arrived after 30 minutes and I was welcomed by the driver I hired to bring me to Argentina as part of an organized tour to see both sides of the falls.
The luggage claim was not COVID proof looking back at those 2019 pictures !
My driver (cannot remember his name) was a friendly Argentinian guy who was working for a local tour company. We arrived at the Brazilian border point about 15 minutes after leaving the airport and he took care of the exit formalities inside the Brazilian border police building (I am still surprised that I did not have to go with him so that the border police could actually see my face, that remembered the way we exited Zambia in November 2018 !).
I did not even had to leave the car to exit Brazil !
Then, we crossed the bridge over the Iguazu river to enter Argentina and the town of Puerto Iguazu where I booked a hotel for the next few nights.
Entering Argentina
Argentina border at Puerto Iguazu
There was a bit of a queue on the Argentinian side, but nothing too bad, maybe 10 minutes queuing at most, nothing compared to entering the US from Canada or Mexico by car !
The driver then dropped me at my hotel, it was about 13:00 where I just crashed for 4 hours after taking a refreshing shower, as the atmosphere was a bit warm and stuffy since I landed in Foz de Iguaçu.
To conclude this post, the GOL flight was maybe nothing to write home about, but it was on-time and the schedule was convenient for me. Also, the GOL lounge was a pleasant surprise, despite the fact it was pretty crowded. For 14500 Flying Blue miles and 7 Euros (+ 38 Euros of premium economy upgrade and 10 Euros of additional bag) I think it was ok.
Moreover, I was happy to find a tour operator who was able to pick me up at the Brazilian airport to drop me on the Argentinian side and then have me take part of a tour of both sides of the falls during the two days I was there for a very competitive price of 34 USD, including a transfer to the Argentinian airport of Puerto Iguazu on the last day ! Us Europeans take crossing international borders as easy and granted (No later than this week-end for instance I did a walk with some friends in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, all in just a couple hours !) but it's not the case everywhere, and government rules and transportation companies sometimes make it costly and complicated to cross borders. This was not the case here. The name of the company I used is called Argentina4U and I would recommend it.
Next : A tour of both sides of the Iguazu falls !