Tuesday, March 25, 2008

JetBlue Set to Launch New Brazilian Airline

This week, Globo reported that the Brazilian National Aviation Agency (ANAC) is going through the approval process to allow JetBlue to start a new airline based in Brazil. The airline will be officially announced on March 27th.
JetBlue founder David Neeleman raised US$200 million to begin the new company. He's in the process of hiring Brazilian executives to run the company, and already named Gianfranco Benting as marketing director and Miguel Dau, former Varig executive, as vice president of operations.

Apparently, the approval process was expedited because Neeleman has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Brazil. In fact, Neeleman, an American of Dutch descent, was born in São Paulo, and performed his Mormon missionary duties as a young adult in Rio de Janeiro. JetBlue, an American low-cost airline, already uses Brazilian-made airplanes to operate in the U.S.

The new company is yet another sign of rapidly growing foreign investment in Brazil.

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