Backing Brown on flights to Brazil

I’m backing the mission to get direct flights to Brazil:

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown is on a mission to establish a direct flight from Auckland Airport to Sao Paulo, which he believes could boost trade between New Zealand and Brazil by up to $1.5 billion a year.

Last week Brown was part of a delegation that visited the Brazilian city, which included Trade Minister Todd McClay.

Brown has had business dealings in Brazil in the past and used the trip to help build connections for New Zealand companies.

He also met with the mayor of Sao Paulo, Richardo Nunes, and other key figures in the city about Auckland becoming a transit point for flights between China and the South American city.

“The China-Brazil trade is $490b, and generally they go via America or Europe,” Mayor Brown explained.

“The Chinese would rather go a more direct route and not go through America, because things are getting a bit tight between China and America, and the shortest way is via Auckland.”

Although on a map it might look like Auckland isn’t on a direct path between China and Sao Paulo, Brown said it’s an optical illusion.

“What we suffer from is the Mercator projection of the world, and we’re down here in the corner,” he said.

“But the world is a globe and we’ve convinced ourselves that we’re alone and away from everybody.

“To go from South China to Brazil the best way is to go around the bottom, via here. If we could get a 1% sniff of that trade, it’d double the GDP of my city.” . . 

A direct flight to Brazil would bring economic benefits from both trade and tourism and I hope Air New Zealand will take a serious look at this.

We’ve been to Argentina 11 times. The first flight was a marathon with Lan Chile via Tahiti, Easter Island and Santiago. After that we were able to fly direct with Air New Zealand to Buenos Aires – about 11 1/2 hours going there and 13 hours coming home.

These flights stopped during the covid shutdown and haven’t resumed.

No other Star Alliance airline has taken over and while I’d prefer a direct route back to Buenos Aires, São Paulo would be nearly as good.