Brazilian airports are already operating above capacity and, despite measures to attempt to speed up their building, we don’t know if the airports will be ready for 2014. Even if the airports are ready, we don’t know if there will be a sufficient supply of seats. And now, even if the airlines sell the tickets, we don’t know if they will actually transport the passenger.

Since last Sunday, August 1st, airline Gol has been delaying or canceling many of their flights. On Monday, more than 50% of the flights were affected; in Rio de Janeiro alone, out of 105 flights, 80 had been delayed and 11 had been canceled. On Tuesday, Infraero informed that Gol had delayed 203 and canceled 47 domestic flights. Today, Infraero informed that about 37% of domestic flights are still delayed.

Gol informed that the delays were “a reflex of the big increase in the volume of passengers, since last Friday” (last day of the winter break in Brazilian schools). According to sources, Gol pilots and crews had exceed the overtime work permitted by law, and refused to fly; besides, Gol had diverted aircrafts to more profitable charter flights, lacking aircrafts for normal routes.

Today, ANAC, the Civil Aviation Federal Agency, announced the punishment for Gol: a R$ 2 million (a bit more than US$ 1 million) fine.

So, a company sells tickets to thousands of passengers, fails to honor them, comes up with stupid excuses, and gets away paying a R$ 2 million fine (that is, if Gol ever pays that fine – it is well known that corporations in Brazil just ignore fines imposed by the Federal Agencies). No wonder the company doesn’t care about quality.

One could think that Gol’s competitors could take the opportunity to gain new clients. But it is no so. First, because the air transportation market in Brazil is dominated by a duopoly, Gol and TAM. And also because TAM is not any more reliable than Gol – massive TAM delays are also not very uncommon.

Probably CBF is right: the stadiums are delayed, but they can be built until 2014; changing the scenario of air transportation in Brazil will be much more difficult.

Last week, Veja, the most influential Brazilian magazine, published on the Issue #2159, April 7th 2010, a detailed report (pages 68 through 77) about the infrastructure of the Brazilian airports, and concluded that: most airports are already working above nominal capacity; even with the planned investments (and assuming those investments will be actually realized), several airports will be still uncapable of handling the expected increase of traffic by 2014.

Access to previous issued of Veja is free (click here and search for the desired issue).

According to Veja, problems stem from mostly two reasons: the number of passengers in Brazil has been growing very rapidly, and the investments have been growing too slowly.

Brazil is experiencing an economic boom, and people from lower classes are now travelling by air, rather than by road. Besides, some new air companies were created recently, and competition is being prices downwards. These factors are increasing the number of passengers in the airports.

The graph below shows the impressive growth rate year-on-year of the number of passengers in all major Brazilian airports combined; from 2006 to the end of 2010, the total number of passengers should grow by more than 100%. During the same period, the nominal capacity of those airports didn’t increase anything.

According to Veja, the main consequences of this lack of investments are: long check-in queues; over crowding in the boarding rooms; long delays to claim baggages; shortage of fingers for aircrafts to dock and passengers to board and unboard.

The image below compares the airports of Guarulhos, in São Paulo (the busiest in Brazil) and the airport of Gatwick, in London.

São Paulo receives a bit more than 21 million passengers per year (nominal capacity is 15 million per year), whereas Gatwick receives a bit more than 34 million; in Guarulhos, there are 61 fingers, against 108 in London; São Paulo have 260 check-in counters, against 317 in London. São Paulo looks much more crowded.

All major Brazilian airports are ran by Infraero, an State owned company. Infraero’s site publishes statistics about passengers and cargo in all airports.

Infraero collects the boarding taxes paid by passengers (R$ 19.62 – about US$ 12 – for flights within the country, and US$ 36 for international flights); besides, Infraero collects several fees from aircrafts operators.

Infraero should employ that money to maintain airports running smoothly; but apparently they are not capable of doint that.

This other report talks about problems in Brazilian airports.

Bisignani also declared that, if the Brazilian Government decides to privatize existing airports or contract the building of new ones, laws should be passed to guarantee that all airports are ready and fully working in 2014: “the airports can’t be turned into money printing machines; there is no point in imposing fines to contractors, if visitors have already been frustrated”.

In regards to this same matter, Bisignani said that Brazil should seek to avoid the problem in South Africa, where, to pay the dividends to the airport operators, the airfare taxes will experiment a raise of 133%.

In response to Iata, the Minister of Defense (which controls all air traffic in Brazil), Nelson Jobim, declared that “we indeed have problems in the airports, but we are working to have them ready by 2014″.

The Minister said that there is an over estimation of the increase in the number of visitors during the World Cup. According to the Minister, during the months of the Cup, the circulation of passengers will increase by a figure of 2,7 million, which represents only 10% more than the normal traffic.

What the Minister doesn’t seem to remember is that Brazilian passenger have no choice but to use – and continue using -  these airports (photo shows a day of chaos in Rio de Janeiro airport). Foreign visitors may or may not come back – and they can tell the World about the problems of Brazilian airports.

First point: Brazil is much bigger than South Africa, and the host cities of the World Cup 2014 are much more far apart than those in 2010.

In France, Japan, Korea and Germany (hosts of the most recent Cups), the main means of transportation between cities was the train. Brazil has no railway networks for transportation of passengers (most long distance railways operate cargo only); a bidding process is going on to build a bullet train between Rio and Sao Paulo, but it is uncertain whether it will ready by 2014 (estimated costs border US$ 20 billion) – update: the Government already declared that the bullet train will be ready only by 2018.

That means taht there are not and there will not be trains connecting the host cities of the World Cup 2014.

Brazilian airports are poor, compared to those in developed countries. Usually, there is only one major airport in each State (exceptions are only São Paulo, Rio and Minas Gerais), which concentrates all traffic. See notes about the airports here, here and here.

Air control, despite recent accidents (like this and this), is considered safe; however, it is uncertain whether the system will stand the major increase in air traffic expected for the World Cup.

Besides, supply of seats is limited. Just two airlines, TAM and Gol, control about 90% od all flights; there are strong restrictions for other international companies to operate in Brazil. This lack of competition caused the services of both companies to be poor; the companies rank amongst the most complained about in the Consumer Defense Agencies in Brazil. The companies never had interest in expanding the aerial network in Brazil; several of the host cities have no direct connection today (usually, a stop over is necessary in the major hubs: Sao Paulo and Brasilia).

Brazil announced heavy investments in airports, but frauds and delays are already being reported. It is dubious whether air companies will have the willing and the money to buy new aircrafts.

Brazil has an extensive network of highways. Several roads are in bad conditions, but the Governments are making efforts to improve them, either by chartering operations to private parties (NovaDutra operates the highway between Rio and Sao Paulo), or by investing large amounts of money (BR-101, which connects Salvador, Recife, Natal and Fortaleza, will be double laned next year).

So, long distance highways should be in good conditions for 2014. It remains to be seem if foreign visitors will endure the long distance drivings and the proverbial lack of education of Brazilian drivers (from 1999 to 2007, a staggering 254,000 deaths occurred in transit accidents in Brazil).

Governments are investment heavily to improve urban circulation; more highways, more metros, better urbanization. This will certainly help the residents, but won’t help visitors move around cities.

Then, there are ships. Almost all host cities have a port nearby. Cruises are growing in Brazil, and ships may be an option in 2014.

So, if the poor infrastructure in South Africa raises concerns in CBF, the situation in Brazil seems even worse.