Real Transportes Aéreos

IATA	ICAO	Callsign
RL	RL

Founded

1945

Ceased operations

1961

Headquarters

São Paulo, Brazil

Key people

Linneu Gomes, Vicente Mammana Neto

Real (Redes Estaduais Aéreas Limitadas) Transportes Aéreos 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.

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.

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Wikipedia