Carrier's Total Fleet Reaches 123 Aircraft

Brazilian airline TAM S.A. recently received its second Boeing 777-300ER of an eight-plane order. Captain David Barioni Neto, President of TAM, and Commander Fernando Sporleder Junior, the company's Vice President of Operations, received the B777 directly from Boeing's factory in Seattle, and both piloted the aircraft to Sao Paulo.

TAM is operating the route between Sao Paulo and Frankfurt, Germany, with this new aircraft, which offers a total capacity of 365 passengers. The route between Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile is currently operating six days per week with the new plane. Due to its greater energy efficiency, as well as allowing a reduction of operating costs because it consumes less fuel, the B777-300ER emits less harmful gas into the environment.

Currently, after returning two MD-11s, TAM's fleet now has 123 aircraft, 117 Airbus models (17 A319s, 81 A320s, 3 A321s, 14 A330s and 2 A340s), 2 B777-300ERs, 3 B767-300s and one MD-11. The fleet's average age was reduced to 5.9 years.

For Captain Barioni, "these acquisitions reinforce our policy of operating a fleet with a low average age, assuring greater comfort for passengers, aiding in our search for Service Excellence, one of the three fundamental pillars of the company's actions, together with Technical-Operational Excellence and Management Excellence."

Since the beginning of 2008, the company has operated the domestic market with a monofleet, made up exclusively of Airbus aircraft. TAM has a consistent and flexible long-term fleet plan to sustain expansion in the international and domestic markets. The estimate for the end of 2013 is to have 151 planes in operation.

FMI: www.tam.com.br/