The Porto Alegre airport in Brazil's southern Rio Grande do Sul state resumed operations five months after record floods suspended all flights.
The airport, managed by Germany's Fraport, will have the capacity to receive up to 128 flights/d, Fraport said. Initially, the airport is expected to receive 70 flights/d, with that number slated to increase to 122/d in November.
Flights will still remain below previous levels. Prior to the floods, the airport had forecast that it would have 5,404 domestic and international flights and transport over 608,000 passengers in April.
The airport was closed for 171 days after its terminal and runways flooded during record rainfall that devastated Rio Grande do Sul state in late April and early May. Fraport temporarily operated a reduced number of flights out of the nearby Canoas military base.
Even with the closure of the Porto Alegre airport, Brazilian airlines transported over 7.9mn passengers in September, a 4.3pc increase from 7.5mn in the same month last year, according to civil aviation agency Anac.
Demand for domestic flights, measured as revenue per kilometer (RPK), increased by 8.8pc in September from a year earlier. The supply of domestic flights, measured as available seat kilometers (ASK), was up by 7.1pc from a year earlier. Demand for domestic flights is up by 3.5pc in the 12 months ending in September, while supply increased by 1.7pc in the period.
