Welcome to my next trip report, a recount of my recent journey from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Los Angeles…via Florida, Panama City, and San Salvador.
My Long Journey Home From Brazil
The “point” of this trip was to review Azul’s new A330-900neo in business class, which operates sporadically between Viracopos International Airport outside of Sao Paulo and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Azul, which means blue in Portuguese and was founded by JetBlue founder David Neeleman, has been on my wishlist for quite some time and partners with both United Airlines MileagePlus and Air Canada Aeroplan in North America.
I used 69K United miles to book the following itinerary:
- Viracopos – Fort Lauderdale in Azul Business Class
- Fort Lauderdale – Panana City in Copa Business Class
- Panama City – San Salvador in Copa Business Class
- San Salvador – Los Angeles in Avianca Business Class
On the way down from Houston to Sao Paulo, I flew a 777-200 in United Polaris Business Class. I’ve reviewed this product so many times, I’ll just mention that I ate dinner after boarding, fell asleep, and woke up about an hour from Sao Paulo and enjoyed breakfast. That’s all I can report from that flight…it was restful as intended.
I had less than 24 hours in Brazil and was going to get a room at the Grand Hyatt, but no day rates were available. To save some money, I used expiring Orbucks to book a room at the nearby Mercure hotel…not a hotel I would ordinarily stay at, but Azul has no lounge currently open and for $39 (offset to zero by my Orbucks) I had a nice room to spend 12 hours working at. Indeed, it was a productive day. I also chose that hotel because it had a sauna, but sadly I found the sauna was closed (due to COVID-19 they said…yeah right).
You can expect the following reviews in this trip report:
- Mercure São Paulo Nacoes Unidas Hotel
- VCP-FLL in Azul A330-900neo Business Class
- FLL-PTY-SAL in Copa 737-800 Business Class
- Copa Airlines Lounge Panama City (PTY)
- My Failed Effort To Enter El Salvador
- Avianca Lounge San Salvador (SAL)
- SAL-LAX in Avianca A320 Business Class
I’ve already provided my first impressions of these flights and note here I had a wonderful time on Azul…and a not so wonderful time on Copa and Avianca.
CONCLUSION
This trip to Brazil was not nearly as fun as my last one, in terms of time on the ground. But it allowed me to fly Azul (and sadly experience dismal onboard service on Copa and Avianca). Stay tuned! Thanks for reading.
Just curious, with a routing like this, are there any cabotage roadblocks or similar concerns that come up when booking? Just wondering about the portion where foreign carriers are transporting you between two US cities via a third country.
Since you flew it I assume there isn’t an issue (and given all the complexities of just connecting in FLL, definition of connecting/stopover, multiple carriers, etc. I suspect somewhere in there excludes it from cabotage), but this strikes me as the sort of itinerary that some booking engines might have trouble with?
I was a bit curious this routing was offered, but had no issues with the ticket itself and checking-in for the US transit.
There wouldn’t be any cabotage restrictions because the trip originated in Brazil and ended in the US. Cabotage, as the term is used in air travel, refers to traveling between an origin and a destination in the same country via a second country. Since the origin here was Brazil and the destination the US his routing can use whichever transfer points it feels like (subject to other laws and airline rules, obviously) and hence this routing is valid (if odd, but hey, that’s the fun of reading travel blogs). However, the FLL to LAX via PTY and SAL portion could never be sold by itself (well, not legally) because that would begin and end in the US while transiting a second (and third) country.
It’s the same reason why AC can’t sell you a ticket from JFK to LAX via Toronto and why Americans regularly get into trouble transiting in Seoul between the US and Guam.
What was the GRU-VCP transit like?
Used Uber. I’ll do a post on it. Good question.
“sauna was closed (due to COVID-19 they said…yeah right” It might be true. The stupid Governor here closed all saunas and pools during the pandemic. Yes, because the virus would survive chlorine and heat. Oh well!!!
But the sauna was open at the Grand Hyatt down the street.
Love the tricolored cowling on the starboard engine on the UA 772. The white section with the dark band is really odd.
Noticed that too…they must have replaced the engine just after they repainted to new livery?