Good Golly, Gol is Good!
Written: Sep 15 '04 (Updated Sep 21 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good service, clean new planes, low fares
Cons: Advertising mars the plane's interior
The Bottom Line: Headed to Brazil? No sense paying sky-high airfares....check out Gol first. The airline is competently run and flies an extensive route map.
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| mrkstvns's Full Review: Gol Linhas Aereas |
In a country as big as Brazil, you have to fly if you're going to see much, but unfortunately, fares on major Brazilian carriers are about as sky-high as their cruising altitudes. Sure, you can do the Brazil Air Pass deal if you're flying Varig, TAM, or VASP, but a lot of those flights require connections through Sao Paulo and the schedules aren't always convenient.
While I did have VASP tickets for most travel on my recent trip to Brazil, I wanted to try a few flights on Gol, and it would have cost me at least as much to fly every flight I wanted on Gol (but with sometimess less convenient schedules). Instead of biting the bullet and taking inconvenient flights, I opted instead to spend those extra Franklins on better flights flown on young startup carrier Gol.
The Aircraft...
Gol is one of those start-up airlines that was not a shoe-string operation: it buys brand new aircraft, and consequently, Gol flies the youngest fleet in Brazil. The aircraft are all Next Generation Boeing 737s (700 and 800 series).
The planes are generally clean, but Gol still manages to make them look ugly and cheap by plastering tasteless ads to the backs of the seat trays. Instead of feeling calmed by a clean, tranquil atmosphere, I find my senses assaulted by cheap hucksters hawking bad tasting unhealthy snacks and ugly hair coloring products to make your hair a terrifying shade of unnatural orange. The effect is one of feeling that your'e on a New York subway train instead of an Amtrak Acela. YUCK-O on the ads!
At least the seats are fairly comfortable --- leg room certainly feels better than normal to me (at least better than U.S. carriers). I know for certain that it is a gargantuan improvement over the horribly tight seat configuration that Continental uses on their Boeing 767-400s (what a sardine can that plane is!)
Doing Business with Gol...
It's easier for a foreigner to do business with Gol than with most other Brazilian carriers, but room for improvement does exist.
The airline's web site (www.voegol.com.br) is clean, intuitive, and easy to use, and with more brilliant shades of orange than I've ever seen outside a Baltimore Orioles souvenir shop.
There is also a tab you can click to switch from Portugese to English, and surprisingly, the English actually makes sense and doesn't feel like it was translated by a dyslexic Mandarin Chinese who learned Portugese and English from a Belritz tape.
The site is fast without a lot of extraneous nonsense. Flights are clearly listed and only fares and flights that are actually available to purchase (i.e., with seats available) are displayed. You won't get bait-and-switch from this web site.
The easy way to book flights is to do it online, do the e-tickets, and charge them to your American Express card. (Visa and MasterCard are accepted only if the card was issued by a Brazilian bank --- if you simply must use a Visa or MasterCard, you can buy the tickets in person at the ticketing desk inside a Brazilian airport, or you can purchase them from a Brazilian travel agent (I called a couple U.S. agents who specialize in Brazilian travel, and they'd be happy to sell me tickets on Varig or TAM, but not on Gol).
Airfares are listed in Brazilian Reals, and there's not a conversion tool on the web page, but the currency value is pretty stable, and it's an easy conversion: one Real equals three U.S. dollars (more or less). Fares are generally pretty darn good --- undercutting Varig and TAM almost all the time, and generally close to or beating VASP as well. There's a carrier called BRA that can still beat out Gol, albeit on a somewhat limited route map, but I'll save that discussion for another day... The bottom line is that Gol offers very competitive rates and is a good option for anyone reluctant to pay the often high price of domestic airfare in Brazil.
I like that their route map doesn't focus excessively on one or two hubs --- it's often possible to get good direct flights, or to do hops through intermediates cities, which is a heck of a lot better than backtracking to out-of-the-way hubs.
Flying with Gol...
I was generally pretty darn pleased with my experience with Gol. I thought they were very efficient and quick on the check-in, and I was shocked to see that their basic modus operandi seems to be to push back their planes from the gates at least 5-10 minutes ahead of departure time --- it's no wonder Brazilians like these guys!
In my opinion, the one thing that irritates me more than any other aspect of air travel is airlines that have consistently long check-in lines. I'll tolerate short delays in the flight more easily than half hour waits for inefficient check-in processes (which I find at all too many U.S. carriers these days).
I was worried when I got to Rio's Tom Jobim airport (GIG) only to find the Gol line stretched back practically to Fortaleza. But the line moved. And moved quickly at that. Gol had about 8 agents working the check-in counter, and they were obviously checking in for several flights at once. The line that would have taken American Airlines about 60 minutes to clear was done in about 15 on Gol. Good service gets a smile from me every time --- sometimes even faster than a cheap fare!
On another leg, I was about the fifth person in line at Curitiba International Airport (CWB) and was up to the counter within just a couple minutes. I was watching what they were doing, and it looked to me like their key to fast service was to have a few extra people working behind the counter, taking care of things like weighing and tagging the bags while the agent focused on verifying the documents and issuing boarding passes. Whatever their method, the result was obvious --- Gol is easily several times faster and more efficient in their check-in processes than any U.S. carrier I've ever flown.
One of the things I've never understood with Southwest is their stupid insistence on not assigning seats. Charter carriers have historically shown that seats can be assigned while still delivering low fares, and carriers like Gol underscore that fact in bold brush strokes. Gol does assign seats, but still manages to deliver cheap fares. Gol also manages to get their planes cycled at least as fast as Southwest, proving that their argument about quick recycle times is just a lot of hot air and malarkey. Southwest just doesn't want to be customer friendly. If they did, they'd do something about that stupid crush of customers pushing to be the first on the plane.
Thankfully, Gol is a better airline than Southwest. They're more efficient, and they provide better service, as evidenced by assigning seats.
The one area where Gol does seem to do cutbacks is in their in-flight food service. A pre-packaged brownie, a cracker and a glass of Pepsi (no Coke, Pepsi!) was pretty much the extent of what you get for a "breakfast" on one early morning flight. Thankfully, Gol is in the airline business and not the food service business.
Bottom Line...
If you're headed to Brazil, consider Gol for getting you around the country. They have a pretty good route map and will probably get you to most of the places you want to go, though you won't be able to use them all the time --- I know you want to see the spectacular falls at Iguacu, which unfortunately, is not one of the destinations served by Gol. (Hint: Try VASP for the best fares and flight schedules into Iguacu (IGU)).
Good fares, good service, good web site, fast check-in, clean new aircraft. Good golly! There's a lot of things to like about Gol!!
Recommended:
Yes
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