Flying the Friendly Brazilian Skies with VASP
Written: Sep 21 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good schedules, cpmpetitive fares, comfy planes, good in-flight service
Cons: Poor reservation support in U.S., slow check-ins, antiquated computer systems
The Bottom Line: VASP does offer good flights at good prices, but doing business with them may require the patience of Job. Remember: "They also serve them who wait."
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| mrkstvns's Full Review: VASP |
My trusty Lonely Planet Brazil guidebook recommends riding the buses to get around within Brazil. That's frugal advice. The buses are inexpensive, and they are very modern and comfortable. But Brazil is a HUGE friggin' country, and if you have even less time than money, than I'm SURE you don't want to be messin' with buses. Heck, the bus ride from Rio de Janiero to Iguazu takes 22 hours, and those cities are relatively close by Brazil standards.
One look at a map and a bus schedule will confirm what I found out in about 28 seconds of investigation. The way to get around in Brazil most certainly is not buses, it's planes. Definitely planes.
When I started digging around for flight schedules, I found that most of the U.S. travel web sites just show you Varig and TAM flights. There's a lot more out there though, all of 'em cheaper options. Gol is the up and coming discount airline --- good deals, but they don't fly everywhere I wanted to go, and many of their itineraries required stops. BRA had some great fares, but not to places I wanted to go when I wanted to go there. VASP though, VASP turned out to be a great choice for reasonably prices on very conveniently scheduled flights throughout much of southern Brazil. (They might do well for you in the northeast too, I didn't really dig too far there.) Anyway, here's what I thought about my VASP experience...
About VASP...
VASP boasts that they're the second-largest airline in Brazil (behind Varig), and so they are. They're one of the oldest too, having been established back in 1933. They also have one of the most extensive route maps within Brazil --- flying just about anywhere that has at least one field that's not too crowded with cows. Nobody (including Varig) has better coverage of southern Brazil (including Sao Paulo, Iguazu Falls, Curitiba, etc.)
My cheapskate heart likes VASP for reasons other than their big route map. They have good fares too, often substantially beating out Varig and TAM, and on many routes, matching low-fare carriers like Gol. Of the airlines offering Brazil Air Passes, VASP has the least expensive pass (US$340 for four flights). I never did succeed in buying one of those passes, but it would have been my cheapest option if I could have snagged on it. Kind of like actually buying a car at the sales price in the Saturday morning paper, isn't it?
Anyway, VASP flies a boatload of routes throughout Brazil. Most of their aircraft are Boeing 737s, including a large number of older 200 and 300 series. They also fly a handful of Airbus 300s.
Web Site...
I first had an inkling that I'd need to use VASP's own web site when I tried to book some flights using Travelocity to find flights between various cities that I wanted to visit in Brazil. Travelocity wouldn't let me book online --- it gave me a message that the airline "provides only flight schedules". And so, I went in search of VASP, finally finding it at: www.vasp.com.br
VASP's web site is clean and simple, but unfortunately for us gringos, it is only in Portugese. If you understand Spanish fairly well (probably French or Italian either), you can figure out most of what you need to know. I was able to easily find flight schedules and fares for all of the itineraries that I was considering. I also found information about VASP's version of the Brazil Air Pass (passes are also available from Varig and TAM, and are an excellent option if you're going to be doing open-jaw trips between 3 or more cities). Armed with info about my proposed itineraries, I was ready to buy.
Unfortunately, that's where I started running into snags. Some of the forms on VASP's online reservation system have required fields that I have no clue as to what they mean (a Brazilian probably knows what a CFP is....but not me).
No problem. By browsing around a few more links, I was able to find U.S. phone numbers for VASP's office in Miami, so I figured I'd just give 'em a call and buy that Brazil Air Pass over the phone...
Phone Reservations...
Might darn nice of VASP to have a toll-free U.S. reservation number. Not mighty nice of them to never friggin' answer the phone! I tried about 87 times to get through to VASP, all of those times during "normal business hours" of 9am to 5pm eastern time. Each time, the phone would ring about 10 times before rolling over to a recording that "all agents are busy". The recording would then advise me to leave a voice mail and an agent would happily return my call.
Cool. I can do that.
Then I get a message that the voice mailbox is full. Okayyyyyy, fine.....I'll just call back later.
And so I did.
Over, and over, and over I called. Many times over the course of 2 weeks. Never got hold of anyone. Never even got a voice mailbox that wasn't already full.
I think the VASP phone reservation agents used to do tech support for Microsoft.
Reservation Agents...
Believe it or not, I did eventually manage to buy tickets on VASP. It wasn't easy, but I did it. I did it by walking up to the reservation counter inside Rio de Janeiro's Tom Jobim International Airport (GIG) and buying them in person. That method actually worked!
Inside the airport, the agents were polite, efficient, and managed to get me booked on the flights I wanted with minimal hassle. Even though by this time I wanted flights that would depart within 3 days, I got fairly decent fares (no chance at buying an air pass though if you don't get them outside Brazil).
Booked the E-tickets.
The reservation agents printed my itinerary on a dot matrix printer. I haven't seen of those since Lyndon Johnson was president. It would be a harbinger of check-ins to come...
Flight Checkin...
When I got to Tom Jobim Airport the morning that I was supposed to fly out to Iguazu, the VASP line stretched back about halfway to Buenos Aires. And that was just the good looking passengers...good thing we arrived way early.
After about 10-15 minutes of standing and moving nowhere, one of the check-in agents stood up and informed everyone (in Portugese only) that a computer malfunction brought down all of the terminals and nobody could get checked in for awhile. Another 10-15 minutes and eventually the computers did come up. Sort of. At least enough to confirm E-tickets, although the agents were hand-writing boarding passes since the printers evidently decided to stay down. I haven't had a hand-written boarding pass since FDR was president.
Hand-written boarding passes without seat assignments do not inspire confidence, but the agent assured me it was all right, and she was a very attractive agent.
Check-in at airports in Iguazu and Curitiba were different matters entirely. Computers seemed to be up and running, lines were minimal, and campers were happy (although the agents were less attractive than in Rio...must be a carioca thing).
On the Plane...
The high point of dealing with VASP was actually being in the air with them.
Although the planes weren't new (we had 737s on each leg of our trip), they were clean, and best of all, they had good amounts of leg room. None of that midget Japanese contortionist stuff on VASP!
Service was excellent too. Every passenger was offered a complimentary morning newspaper on early flights, there was meal service on all but the shortest flights, and complimentary beers were available on every flight (Oh what a wonderous world to have places like Brazil in it!!) The flight attendants were almost as cute as the check-in agent in Rio (well, except for one older, bald dude....he didn't do much for me). All flights were on time and were fairly uncrowded (just the way I like 'em and airlines hate 'em).
Overall Experience...
Dealing with VASP isn't going to be easy for anyone outside Brazil. Without an English language option on the web site and without reservation agents who actually answer the telephone, buying tickets ahead of time is going to be an exercise in patience and futility. The carrot of cheap air passes is tempting indeed, but its a holy grail to many folks since I also couldn't find a local travel agent who would seel VASP tickets.
Once in Brazil, I found it easier to deal with VASP, but still not painless as they seem to have some catching up to do in the realm of modern stoneage computer technology.
Nonetheless, VASP is a decent enough airline to actually fly with. I liked their planes, and I appreciated their punctuality and good in-flight service. Would I fly 'em again? Sure. If the price were right, and I had all year to monkey around with getting answers and buying tickets, yeah, I'd fly 'em, but only if Gol weren't going where I wanted to go, because frankly, I think Gol is better.
Until next time, see you on the plane. As always, look for me in the cheap seats.
Recommended:
Yes
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