NEXT FR:
AZU2754 POA-GEL - AT76- Azul's inaugural flight to Santo Ângelo
AZU2601 POA-VCP - E195
AZU5780 VCP-PGZ - AT76 - my first flight to Ponta Grossa
AZU5781 PGZ-VCP - AT76
After my flight from Porto Alegre and some planespotting on a bad weather, it was time to go back to the airport.
Since the government granted Guarulhos to the private initiative, the airport has improved a lot. Not only they finished an amazing international terminal (Terminal 3, which some of you may have already visited), but they revamped the other terminals.
Terminal 1 - Azul and Passaredo (I was thinking of making a FR on Passaredo, what do you guys think?)
Terminal 2 - Aerolíneas Argentinas, Aeroméxico, Air Europa, Austral, Avianca Brasil, Avianca Internacional, Boliviana de Aviación (BoA), Copa, Delta, Ethiopian, Gol, LATAM Brasil (domestic flights), Royal Air Maroc and TAAG.
Terminal 3 - Air Canada, Air China, Air France, Alitalia, American, British, Emirates, Iberia, KLM, LATAM Brasil (international flights), LATAM Internacional, Lufthansa, Qatar, Singapore, SAA, Swiss, TAP, Turkish and United.
When I got to the airport there was not much time left to the boarding. But as I had already made the check-in by the cellphone, I got time to take some photos in the renewed airside.
Departures from Guarulhos
Then they called our flight.
It seemed that few people knew that this was the last flight of ONE to Passo Fundo. We would fly in PR-ONC, a 9-years old aircraft. It was originally delivered to LAN in January 2008. It operated for LA as CC-CVP until March 2012, when it was stored. ONE brought it to the fleet in August, with which ONC is flying since then. By the way, at the time of my flight, ONC had just been put back into Avianca's fleet - it was stored since November 2016, when it suffered a birdstrike in Rio de Janeiro.
At first the FAs kindly greeted me. I'd seat on 12K, in the back half of the aircraft. It's funny to think that Avianca's A318 have only 20 rows! Their A320 have 27, for example. I went to the rear galley and asked to the FA if I could take photos of them and also take their names for a flight report. He said he would ask it to the leader FA.
Wingview from my seat
Anyroad, as the A318 is small and the flight was not that full, in a few minutes boarding was over. Of the 120 seats, 85 were occuppied, that is, 70,8% of them. At 12:11PM, 14 minutes before STD, the doors were closed. At 12:17, we were pushed back. Safety instructions were made by a recorded audio in Portuguese and in English.
At 12:30PM PR-ONC took-off to Passo Fundo for the last time.
Weather in São Paulo region was kinda nice, but we found some big clouds as we were climbing.
I was expecting the overhead screens to appear and show any kind of show, but they didn't. Entertainments we had were Avianca Brasil's Magazine, Avianca em Revista, which showed Hugh Jackman in the cover. Also, we had eight audio channels, that played several song styles.
I thought we would feel the hot food smell, as I had already felt in other ONE flights. So I noticed the sandwiches unfortunatley wouldn't be heated. That's sad, cos' this is the main differential of Avianca when you talk about catering!
They offered a cheese sandwich, which I had already eaten in another flight, and I liked. It was good, but the bread was not very soft - of course I'd prefer it hot. Offered drinks were Guaraná, Pepsi, orange juice, guava juice, light cashew juice, water and coffee.
The flight attendants were mostly nice, but the leader was really polite and friendly. If he saw any passenger reading something, he would turn on the reading light - yes, this makes no difference for reading quality, but it's a very nice gesture! Later I called him to talk about the flight and also about the flight report. He said he couldn't say the crew names to me, neither take photos of them. According to him, that was an airline standard and apologized a lot. He also said that the A318 has only one oven, so there is no hot food in it. When asked about the overhead screens, he said that the aircraft had just been put back in the network, so they had no time to put the new entertainment options (they change it every month). In every month, he was very polite and happy, calling me by the name and smiling.
Exit rows were empty, so I got some time for photographing the seats headrest positions.
Some photos from my seat. Though the bathroom was clean, the aircraft was not that good. But it's important to say the seats in the A318 are very comfortable, the reclining is very good and so is the space (I'm 5,4ft tall).
A coat hook
Dirt in my seat
Broken armrest
No row 13!
Is this an ashtray?
Weather got cloudy as we got near Passo Fundo.
In few minutes we were descending.
Ready to land!
At 01:46PM we made a rough landing with a strong braking in Passo Fundo's short runway.
Soon everybody had deboarded, so I got to take some photos of the aircraft and also of the cockpit.
Bye bye PR-ONC!
Passo Fundo airport is really, really small. I know it has only three flights a day, but the city deserves some more structure!
Avianca's office
Before the take-off… let us take a selfie!
I was quite surprised that just one local newspaper covered the last flight, I met the journalist, who was also an aviation enthusiast, and we photographed Avianca's last take-off from Passo Fundo.
ONE6179 had 91 passengers on board (75,8% of the seats, that is). Of them, 12 were going to Cuiabá, 4 to Curitiba, 4 to Brasília and one each to Aracaju, Rio/Galeão and Lisboa. At 2:41PM, PR-ONC left Passo Fundo for the last time.
After that, we went to Avianca's office to talk with the ground crew, many of them were crying. We heard that everybody was invited to work on the airline's new destination, Navegantes, but few of them actually went there. The rest of them left the company.
Passo Fundo Avianca's ground crew!
My photo on the local newspaper cover
Now I had to wait until 7:00PM for my bus to leave Passo Fundo… besides the long wait, this trip was really worthy!
