Azul's Fast Takeoff in Brazil

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His time in Brazil left him with two distinct advantages: fluency in Portuguese and dual citizenship, which allowed him to get around Brazil's 20% cap on foreign ownership of airlines. Neeleman's instincts told him Brazil was ripe for a new aviation venture. Only a fraction of its 192 million people currently fly; per capita, Americans fly about eight times more, according to Airports Council International. "We're not even close to the level of air travel in mature economies," says Libano Miranda Barroso, CEO of Tam, Brazil's largest airline, with a 46% market share. "Even our projection for 2027 is equivalent to what the U.S. used to have in the 1970s."

Neeleman is determined to change that by creating a new market of fliers. His target is the 52% of Brazilian households that earn between 1,064 and 4,591 reais a month (about $594 to $2,565), making up Brazil's middle class. They are a fast-growing group that traditionally travels by bus. Many carriers have tried to tap this population, only to be thwarted by strained airports and high costs. As Renato Pascowitch, executive director of domestic Brazilian carrier OceanAir, puts it, fliers "often can't afford to take a taxi to the airport. So how do you get these passengers to board your plane, even if you are offering dirt-cheap tickets?"

Neeleman's reply: "We give them a free ride to the airport." Complementary transportation is all the more crucial because Azul, like Southwest and Ryanair, flies nonstop between secondary airports. Its main hub is Viracopos/Campinas International Airport in Campinas, an attractive and well-run city about 50 miles north of São Paulo. Campinas has about 2.6 million people, and some 30 million live within a 120-mile radius. Azul offers bus service from pickup points in seven cities, with about 50 bus trips a day.

But the real draw is the low fares. Tickets, if purchased in advance, run about the same as a bus trip. Traveling from São Paulo to Salvador by bus, for example, costs about $150 each way and takes 23 hours; on Azul, the lowest one-way fare is just over $100. Cristina Maisonnette of Rio de Janeiro had been planning to drive to Natal, a coastal town, before opting to fly. "I hope they survive," she says of Azul. "I want to be able to fly more often."

Azul offers online booking, automatic check-in, sleek plane interiors, and chatty flight attendants who carry baskets of snacks, telling customers to take as much as they want. Neeleman says Azul's reservations staff often take longer on the phone than at JetBlue because "they're explaining that there's a bathroom on board and a light above the seat."

Like JetBlue in its early days, Azul now has the benefit of a brand-new fleet of planes and a young staff, which means low maintenance costs and cheap labor. Profit margins could come under pressure as costs rise over time and as competitors come in with lower fares to steal business. Even before the ice storm, JetBlue's profitability had been eroding for those very reasons.

But these are long-term concerns; for now Neeleman is excited to be back in growth mode. He spends much of his week in Brazil, meeting with his staff and government officials. He also visits local businesses to talk about customer service and tours college campuses to "preach the gospel of Azul." Much of the time, he's on Azul flights, talking to passengers, showing first-timers how to unbuckle their seatbelts, and taking straw polls over the loudspeaker of how many folks are in the air for the first time. Neeleman has vivid memories of driving 12 hours in the back of a station wagon as a child to see his grandparents. "I always thought it would be so great if we could fly," he says. "For millions of people here, that's now possible."

Brady is senior editor at Bloomberg Businessweek in New York. Brasileiro is a reporter for Bloomberg News.

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