This WILL count as day 10 of my 25 days of pictures Christmas 
countdown. Here is a Christmas fact in case you want to say otherwise
Instead of Santa, Kids are visited by 13 troll like figures who go by “Yule Lads” for Christmas in Iceland
Good afternoon from Brasilia, BRA! 
the capital of the largest country in South America. However I’d say it is also the least recognized capital in the continent as well, a lot of the capitals here are obvious like Buenos Aires for Argentina 
Lima for Peru 
Bogotá for Colombia 
Caracas for Venezuela 
Montevideo for Uruguay 
and the list just goes on and on, pretty much every countries largest city is the capital. Things are different in Brazil however as it’s not 1st or even 2nd it’s actually 3rd behind São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in that order. It’s a shame this place really isn’t talked about a lot since I enjoyed my stay here a lot and the residents really do feel proud of their city being represented on the globe 
in terms of politics. I would have no problem returning to Brasilia if I needed to or found a cheap deal on flights. Now however it’s time to head back down to the megalopolis of São Paulo back on GOL Linhas Aérea’s Boeing 737-800 in economy class, I’m glad your joining me on this trip and let’s go!
I arrived at Brasilia’s Juscelino Kubitscheck International Airport which is actually the busiest airport in the country if you exclude both São Paulo airports. But on the board it is 3rd place just behind our destination of São Paulo Congonhas and CGH is behind Guarulhos, the primary airport for São Paulo and Brazil in general. You’d expect one of Rio de Janeiro’s airports to be in the top 3 but nope, the busiest Rio airport is Santos Drumont the smaller one while the primary Galeão Airport is all the way in 10th PLACE. GIG sits behind cities like Salvador, Porto Alegre, Recife, Belo Horizonte, Campinas and of course Brasilia. It honestly shocks me considering that Rio is pretty much the tourist hub of the country and where most tourists would visit. Enough talking about Brazilian airport stats let’s get back to the story, the terminal was decently crowded considering there was a BOATLOAD of flights at this time. Security for the most part was simple and quick but it did fill up really fast as soon as I cleared the checkpoint. Like Congonhas, there really isn’t a whole lot of traffic in terms of airline and aircraft variety as you’ll mostly see GOL Boeing 737s and LATAM Airbus A320s, AZUL Linhas Aéreas also operates some of them Embrear fleet into BSB which adds for slightly better variety but not a whole lot better. If you want to go plane spotting in Brazil don’t even bother coming to Brasilia go to São Paulo or Rio instead. While I waited for boarding to begin, I sat down in the waiting area of an empty gate and simply scrolled through social media as there really wasn’t a whole lot to do here.
FLIGHT INFO:
Origin: Juscelino Kubitscheck Intl (BSB/SBBR)
Destination: Congonhas (CGH/SBSP)
Flight Time: 1:17
Boeing 737-800 (GOL-2018)
Server: Expert
Taking me back down to Brazil’s
most infamous airport will be PR-GXJ, a 12 year old Boeing 737-800 delivered to GOL in August 2013, I entered Kindergarten when this aircraft was delivered and I’m about to graduate in May wow time really does fly no pun intended. This aircraft had also just come in from São Paulo’s Congonhas and is now preparing to fly back to CGH.
I was also called up to board relatively fast considering my OneWorld status since GOL and American Airlines are close codeshare partners which not only let me board earlier, but also let me book this itinerary easier and lets me earn AAdvantage miles for my 2 GOL flights.
Like I said previously, all of GOL’s Boeing 737s have the same seat models no matter if it is brand new MAX8 or older 737-700. The only difference is of course capacity as there are 176 total seats on the B738s and B38Ms while the B737s have 128. We have the set up as we did previously so if you want to go into full details about that, check out the CGH - BSB trip report and then come back here.
This afternoon I’m also seated close to the very back of the aircraft, seat 31A will be home for this brief hop over to São Paulo. I found it to be exactly similar to my previous flight which is great considering I actually quite liked the seats that GOL installed and was rather shocked about the amenities they had considering it is a low cost carrier after all. I don’t know about long haul comfortable but definitely comfortable enough for flights of this length. Just like the previous flight NOT A SINGLE SEAT was free as the flight was completed booked which also didn’t surprise me. We pushed back a few minutes late but we hope to make up time en route, after firing up our engines we made our way across to BSBs RWY 29R for take off!
Bye, bye Brasilia!
After a smooth climb out of Brasilia, we reached our cruising altitude of 32,000ft over the Brazilian Highlands once again for the 3rd time over the border between the states of Goiás and Minas Gerais
The crew also soon began their service which consisted of a free snack and beverage. I chose to have the same snack and drink as the previous flight which were Tortuguita Cookies 
and a Coke 
which I thought were really good and sufficient for this flight. I also however still couldn’t find any menu so I’m not 100% sure if they have snack boxes or even other options for purchase but I really hope they do because there are always those passengers who even on 90 minute flights would still want a hot sandwich 
the crew were also very friendly and communicated well in Portuguese, English AND Spanish something that the previous crew couldn’t do for some reason. Unfortunately no jokes this time around but I’ll still give them 5 stars 
because communicating in Spanish even in a Portuguese speaking country like Brazil is a very vital skill kind of like speaking Spanish in the United States 
is.
Free stream to your device entertainment is also provided which is great considering most LCCs wouldn’t bother with it. Internet access was available once again for a fee which I avoided because it’s only 90 minutes, I can definitely last 90 minutes disconnected from the outside world The Brazilian country side between Brasilia and São Paulo however was honestly more interesting than what I could find on the entertainment library so I chose to turn off my phone completely and took in these views.
The 30-40 minutes in cruise went by extremely fast and it was to begin the approach into São Paulo. We’d fly heading directly south like we were for majority of the flight before making a slight right turn to head towards south eastern parts of the country. We soon made a slight left turn to head towards Congonhas airport, we’d pass the airport on right downwind make a 180 over São Bernardo do Campo, just outside of São Paulo and absolutely FLOOR IT onto CGHs RWY 35L
Down below you is the city of Campinas and the 4th busiest airport in Brazil Viracopos Airport or the Newark Airport of São Paulo if we looked at things in New York City 
terms. VCP is in between Rio de Janeiro Santos Drumont and Brasilia on the leaderboard
If you’re flying in from the north into Congonhas, no matter the runway in use ALWAYS sit on the left side. This view over São Paulo is all that needs to be said. Down below is Congonhas Airport, you probably however can’t see it because of how small and cramped it is but trust me it’s there.
Not long after, we were on our final approach to CGHs RWY 35L
TOUCHDOWN! Literally we landed so hard that a passengers SHOE landed on my foot. The relatively short runway here provides little room for error, one mistake and you’ll end up in the same situation as TAM 3054. Anyways, welcome back to São Paulo, BRA
I’m really looking forward to being back in the city as there are still a lot places here and on the outskirts I really want to check out including a special facility almost 2 hours way by road which I know you’ll really like. On my CGH - BSB trip report, I made a very bold statement saying that I preferred GOL to Southwest and I still stand by that statement. Especially now as WN has gotten rid of some of their most unique amenities like open seating and 2 free checked bags for everybody. G3 and WN are very similar now but the one edge that GOL has are the power ports in EVERY AIRCRAFT. On Southwest you only see them on their newer aircraft so you might be stuck with no power on a long hop or have power on a short hop you don’t need it. Combined with the great seats, nice crew and on time performance makes GOL a solid option when flying throughout Brazil it is easily my favorite LCC in South America and I would much rather fly them than Avianca any day of the week. Keep up the great work GOL I hope to be back on board some day! 
Welcome back to São Paulo’s Congonhas Airport! My aircraft will soon be headed off to Belo Horizonte, BRA
however it for some reason would never make and instead divert to Rio de Janeiro Galeão for some reason. I’m off to grab my rental car I’m using here in São Paulo to explore the more eastern parts of the city while I’m here as my apartment is on the western side very close to the bigger Guarulhos Airport than to Congonhas. I stopped by a nice restaurant on the way and a bakery to grab some pastries for breakfast tomorrow before another long day of exploring São Paulo until it’s time for that special excursion not far from here and another partial day before flying back home to Miami, FL 
Saturday night.
This will be it regarding my flight from Brasilia, BRA to São Paulo, BRA on GOL Linhas Aérea’s Boeing 737-800 in economy class. Stay tuned for that special excursion and as always between now and the next time, see you in the sky! 
