Real Transportes Aéreos

Real Transportes Aéreos (acronym to Redes Estaduais Aéreas Limitadas, literal translation: State Air Networks Limited) was a Brazilian airline founded in 1945. It was merged into Varig in 1961, when Varig bought the Consórcio Real-Aerovias-Nacional, of which Real was the main carrier.

History

Real was founded by Vicente Mammana Netto and Linneu Gomes, two former TACA pilots. TACA also started up Aerovias Brasil, a Brazilian airline that later would form a consortium with Real. In November 1945 Mammana and Gomes bought three Douglas DC-3 and on November 30, 1945 it was authorized to fly. The first flight took off on February 7, 1946 from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro. Later a second route, São Paulo to Curitiba was started.

Real grew by offering low fares because it had lower costs. It is said that it started a fare war to which followed a schedule war. In spite of this, Real was able to grow by extending the service to Curitiba to Porto Alegre and opening flights to Londrina and São José do Rio Preto. Real opened many flights to new locations in precarious operating conditions. It had a bad maintenance record and crews were pressured to fly under adverse conditions. The results were many serious accidents.

Real bought Linhas Aéreas Wright in 1948, Linhas Aéreas Natal in 1950 and Linha Aérea Transcontinental Brasileira in 1951, expanding its network on the northeast and center-west of Brazil.

In 1951 Real started its first international flight, from São Paulo to Asunción via Curitiba and Foz do Iguaçu. The Paraguayan Government also granted to Real domestic traffic rights on its route from Asunción to Uruguaiana via Encarnación. Encarnación is the most important city in the south of Paraguay.

The year 1954 brought to Real the most dramatic growth of its history: by purchasing the already established Aerovias Brasil, Real gained the prestige, experience and influence that it lacked. With the acquisition of Transportes Aéreos Nacional in 1956, a consortium which took the name of Consórcio Real-Aerovias-Nacional was created to fly on the entire Brazilian territory. Though maintaining legal independent identities, because they were controlled by the same person, Linneu Gomes, the three airlines operated jointly and in practice it was Real which controlled the consortium. The consortium dominated the passenger traffic on the triangle São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, the economic center of the country. In 1957 it created a route to Brasília, then still under construction.

To compete with Varig which flew from Rio de Janeiro to New York City with Lockheed Super Constellations 1049G on the east coast, Real received three Lockheed Super Constellations 1049H in 1958 and started a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Los Angeles via Manaus-Ponta Pelada, Bogotá, and Mexico City. In 1960 this route was extended to Honolulu and Tokyo-Haneda; São Paulo to Tokyo and return took just over a week.

The expansion took its toll leading to the gradual purchase of the consortium Real-Aerovias-Nacional by Varig between May and August 1961. At this time, the airline also began flights to Chicago-Midway.

Aerovias Brasil, part of the consortium Real-Aerovias-Nacional, bought three Convair CV-990A for its intercontinental routes shortly before the consortium was sold to Varig. Varig was unable to cancel the order and had to receive and operate those three aircraft.

Fleet

Accidents and incidents

Accidents involving fatalities

*12 December 1949: a Douglas C-47-DL registration PP-YPM, en route from São Paulo-Congonhas to Jacarezinho crashed into a mountain while flying under extreme bad weather conditions over the location of Ribeirão Claro with faulty equipment, where an emergency landing had been attempted. Previously the aircraft had already made an unscheduled stop in Itapetininga

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