According to Publituris, both Embratur, the Brazilian Ministry of Ports and Transport, and the airline itself report, on their official pages, that Azul will start flying directly from the city of Porto to the Pernambuco capital of Recife starting in the IATA winter.

The route should begin operating by the end of 2024, reads a statement from Embratur, Turismo do Brasil and Azul. “It will be the first flight between the two cities and should debut in time for Christmas and the Brazilian summer.” Porto currently has direct flights to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

“More international tourism and more jobs and income”, is how Marcelo Freixo, president of Embratur, described the new route. The entity's expectation is that this decision will attract more European tourists to the northeast of Brazil.

Recife thus becomes the only capital in the northeast to have a Brazilian national airline flight direct to the European continent.

However, the importance of this route is also evident in the interest of Pernambucans in European destinations. Porto, for example, is the fifth most popular city among residents of that Brazilian state.

It should be noted that in March 2024, Brazil registered an increase of 34.9% in tourist arrivals from Portugal, compared to the historical series starting in 1989 – the highest growth among European countries, with approximately of 28 thousand entries into Brazilian territory.

Although this is a novelty for the Brazilian airline, TAP has already announced an increase in its route to Recife, offering 13 weekly flights in the summer to and from Lisbon.

Azul currently has a thousand daily flights to more than 160 destinations and a network of 300 direct routes.