Story ID: 320
Making the Amazon Safe with Caravans
By: Richard Pedicini
Caption: Brazil airlines bank on utility turboprop
Word Count: 300
The Cessna Caravan market is growing in Brazil, Bob Gibbs, Textron Aviation's v-p of special mission sales, said this week at LABACE 2023. “There’s been a big uptick in [aeromedical] purchases, with Caravans bought by the fire department but used by the Ministry of Health,” he said. “All public safety purchases are long-cycle, but they all have to add aircraft eventually.”
The Brazilian market includes federal agencies, which need modern aircraft for surveillance. However, public safety purchases are done by state rather than local governments. “Some big cities could afford to have their own [aircraft], Gibbs said, “but depend on the state.”
Referring to airline Azul’s plans to expand scheduled service from 60 to 160 cities in Brazil, Gibbs affirmed, “A lot of that [will be] Caravans. The Brazilian investment in infrastructure has paid off. Safety has increased enormously in the Amazon with increased radar and communication coverage.”   
Gibbs, who has been selling aircraft to the Brazilian market for a quarter century, remembers a riskier Amazon region. “Twenty years ago, there was no radar control—all positions were self-reported,” he recalled. Even today, flying beyond daylight hours can be risky, he added, “because if Boa Vista is closed, your nearest alternate illuminated landing strip might be 300 miles away.”
Caravans have been used in Brazil for scheduled passenger transport at least since the early 1990s, with airline TAM being one of the early adopters. TAM Aviação Executivo is the Textron Aviation distributor responsible for sales of the Caravan in Brazil and displayed a Grand Caravan EX this week at LABACE. 
“The Caravan isn’t just Brazilian,” Gibbs said. “We’ve had a couple of meetings with neighboring countries every year there’s a LABACE.”