Welcome to my trip report with Azul Brazilian Airlines (2025 edition)!
My ride: PS-AEF (Emerson Farias)
What a beautiful special livery, isn't it?
Introduction
I was supposesd to have done 2 domestic flights from GRU airport. The first return flight was to Florianopolis (FLN) with GOL Airlines, departing at night and return the following day in the morning and then connect to Azul's flight from Sao Paulo to Belo Horizonte (CNF) and return in the evening. However when I arrived to Sao Paulo, I was feeling mentally exhausted so I ended up changing my GRU-FLN-GRU flight to a much later date and rest in the evening and instead fly with Azul to CNF the following day. So for the trip to Florianopolis, I plan to visit this city at the end of 2026 and instead of spending a few hours at the airport, I would spend a few days over there, making it more sense to me.
Later on I checked the flights that I was supposed to be flying on, it was operated by the 737 MAX 8 and furthermore this aircraft was in the standard airline's livery and operated both the flight to FLN and the return morning flight back to GRU. The registration of the aircraft is PR-XMX.
For the Azul Airlines flights, I had to go no matter what for the ERJ-195 E2 aircraft type which is not available in my region and furthermore I did a check on flightradar24, I was scheduled to fly on the airline's special livery for the flight to CNF. There were numerous changes to the aircraft registration for both flights and on the return flight, at one stage, I was scheduled to fly back on the Pink Azul's livery but unfortunately that didn't happen as the flight operation room made other plans for that aircraft (PS-AEA). Whatever it is, I am just happy to be able to tick another special livery aircraft off my list and this tropical Spix Macaw's livery is one of the nicest in my opinion.
In addition, this would be my first time using terminal 1 for departure and arrival so I am more than happy to bring you this trip report, from a Singaporean aviation enthusiast.
So without further ado, let's begin this trip report!
Checking in with the airline
For booking with this airline, I used Trip.com to do so and once the company issued my ticket, I handled the rest. Fortunately, I didn't encounter the problem that I faced with LATAM (LA256), you can check out that trip report over here.
For the airline's website, I was able to access and manage the booking without issues. During my booking with Trip.com, I was assigned 2 emergency row exits and that is great. When I did the web check-in for both flights, the seat assigned to me by Trip.com remained as it is but I decided to change my return flight to one of the seats close to the rear. I didn't expect to encounter a rude airline off-duty staff sitting in front of me. More details on this in my part 2 of my Azul trip report, coming up next.
As Azul's mobile app (together with Jetsmart) is not available to me, I had to use the website.
The layout of the website is neat and I was able to find the important details of my flight without difficulty.
For the web check-in, I was able to change the seat without paying a fee, however for the flight to CNF, I decided to stick put with the emergency row seat.
I chose the basic tier and only paid for the seats with Trip.com.
On the day of departure
The shuttle bus took about 10 minutes or so to transport us from the airport to the terminal 2 coach terminal.
If you are looking at transferring to another terminal, you can catch the shuttle bus. Just follow the signboard.
Welcome to Terminal 2!
For my Azul's flight, I would be departing from terminal 1 but I decided to drop by to take a look before taking the shuttle bus over.
There was a bit of Christmas decoration.
This terminal could certainly do with an upgrade.
Cute teddy bears!
Apart from the Christmas decoration, this terminal looks the same compared to my last visit in 2023.
These are the airlines operating out of this terminal.
There is Uber transport available at this airport.
The layout of the 3 terminals.
This is where the shuttle bus-stop is.
Welcome to Terminal 1!
From Terminal 2, the bus will travel to Terminal 3 next and then to terminal 1.
This terminal is much smaller than the other 2 (Terminal 2 and 3) and currently only Azul Brazilian Airlines operates regular flights out of this terminal.
There are some cafes at the landside of this terminal. Airport Complimentary WiFi is available.
The view outside of the terminal.
Azul's Check-in desks
I tried using the self service check-in machine but the machine ran out of paper so I had to collect my paper boarding pass at the check-in desk.
At least English language is available.
I was able to retrieve my booking.
At this point, I was stuck as the printer ran out of paper.
So I went over to the check-in desk. The staff spoke little English so I had to use the translator to tell her what I need.
Here is my boarding pass.
There were quite a number of travellers at the airport.
Movida is one of the largest car rental companies in this country.
This is the security check towards the airside.
Lots of seating area at the landside.
Although the terminal is small, there are sufficient shops to check out.
One last look before I went over to the airside.
This is the departure hall (airside).
The list of schedule flights departing on that day.
I hope to visit Recife on my next visit!
This is the sitting area near the gates.
Since this terminal has no jetbridge or buses, we had to walk to our aircraft.
There are a few shops and cafes to check out at this part of the terminal.
This is the assigned gate for my flight.
Most of these gates were not in operation at that point of time.
I sat at the far end to do some plane spotting.
If you are hungry, you can check out this cafe before boarding.
More seating area
There are 10 gates in terminal 1.
Plane spotting is possible especially if there is an empty parking lot.
View of the gate area from the other end.
I did a check on my flight, it was arriving from Belo Horizonte.
LATAM's Airbus A321ceo
Here it is, my ride from CNF.
The aircraft was parked near to the cargo hanger.
Soon it was time to board!
There is an ERJ-195 E1, an aircraft type missing from my flight logbook, hope to fly on that aircraft in the near future.
There are staff watching nearby to make sure we were walking to the correct aircraft.
Here it is, my ride to CNF!
Fortunately, I was able to snap as many photos as I like.
Beautiful colour scheme, don't you agree?
I certainly love boarding the aircraft this way especially in good weather.
As my seat was somewhere in the middle, I could choose to board either from the front or the rear.
Boarding from the rear was a no-brainer. More photo opportunities for me.
At this time, we were made to wait as the staff had to realign the staircase to the aircraft door.
A lot of us didn't mind the short delay as we took as many photos as we could!
Another view of this beautiful livery.
The door handle
PS-AEF is the 6th ERJ-195-E2 in the airline's fleet.
My ride: PS-AEF (Photo: Jaka)
Aircraft name: Arainha Azul
ERJ-195-E2
Delivered in November 2020
Configuration: Y136
Engines: 2 X PW1900G
Livery: Tropical Spix's Macaw
Age: 5+ Years Old (January 2026)
Built in Sao Jose Dos Campos (SJK) Brazil
Flight Route: GRU-CNF
Miles: 307
Average Flight time: 55 minutes
Airlines flying on this route: Azul, GOL and LATAM
My seat: 14A (Emergency row) - Aerolopa.com
Airline: Azul Brazilian Airlines
Flight: AD4570
Route: GRU-CNF
Aircraft: ERJ-195-E2
Registration: PS-AEF
Seat: 14A (Emergency row)
Terminal: 1 (GRU)
Gate: 101
Load: 100%
Average Flight Time: 50 minutes
Actual Flight Time: 57 minutes
Schedule Departure: 1000
Boarding: 0918
Push Back: 0952
Take Off: 1016
Schedule Arrival: 1110
Actual Arrival: 1113
Departure Runway: 28R
Departure Weather: Clear
Arrival Runway: 16
Arrival Weather: Partially Cloudy
My flight experience
After the short delay waiting for the ground staff to align the ground stairs vehicle correctly to the aircraft rear door, we boarded the aircraft with a female crew greeting us. This was my 3rd time entering Azul's ERJ-195 E2 aircraft and everything looks familar. The only other airline I flew on the E2 series is with Scoot's aircraft and needless to say that this cabin is certainly more comfortable.
Once on board, the usual announcements were made but only in Portugese so whatever the Captain is saying, I had to make a guess. Since I was sitting at the emergency row exit, the crew came around before departure to give us a short briefing (in Portugese) and since I have flown numerous number of times in the emergency row, I have a brief idea what to do, fortunately I didn't have to do anything on this flight.
Once we pushed back, I realised the runway was changed (due to wind direction) so instead of a quick taxi to the runway 10, we had to taxi to the other end of the runway (28) for departure. This is probably one of the reasons for our slightly late arrival into CNF.
Once we were airbourne, my seat mate initiated the conversation and we started chatting. It was great to finally be able to speak English with a local person and I found out that he is a university student returning to his home for vacation. It was also nice to exchange some information with him and share with him abit of knowledge about aviation.
During our conversation, the cabin came around to give us complimentary snack and beverage and before we know, we started our descent. We hit a bit of turbulence during the take off and during our descent we flew through some clouds and experienced some updraft and downdraft motion. Other than that, the ride was relatively smooth and we touched down a few minutes late.
For this aircraft, it would return to Sao Paulo after this flight and for me I would hang around at CNF airport until my return flight later that day. This is the sort of joyrides I used to take very often during my time in Taipei, I often did this when flying on Far Eastern Air Transport's MD-80 while the airline was still around. This ride certainly brought back memories of it.
Overall it was a pleasant flight and I was looking forward to the return flight.
My Recommandation
The legroom at the emergency row is certainly more spacious than the standard seat. I recommend either this type of seat (row 14 or 15) or the Azul space seat (row 1 to 5).
You can check out my previous trip report of this airline's ERJ-195E2 (Azul Space Cabin) over here.
Cabin photos of the airline's ERJ-195-E2
This seat and window alignment is considered to be one of the better ones on this aircraft type.
The last row of the economy class.
On my return flight, I will be sitting at one of the last few rows.
The large size overhead compartment
Legroom space on the standard seat is quite tight.
This window seat has bad alignment with the window, it can be considered a windowless seat.
Cabin view
The 2-2 layout ensure no one gets a middle seat.
Despite the smaller size cabin compared to the A320/B737 type, this aircraft is considered to be more comfortable to fly on for the passengers .
Each seat comes with a headrest.
2 rows of extra legroom space (emergency rows)
This is my seat, seat 14A. The extra legroom space is very much appreciated!
For this flight, I get to experience the extra legroom space on this economy class.
The side lighting of the Embraer aircraft.
Emergency operation procedure (instruction on how to open the window)
That's me with my old Airliners.net T-shirt!
Another view of the emergency row seats
Time to disembark.
This is the Azul Space seat, easily recognised by the cream colour seats.
Slightly better legroom space in this part of the aircraft.
The seat and window alignment is perfect!
I would certainly select this seat on longer sectors.
More photos of the seat
Plenty of legroom space for a 192 cm tall person.
Although the IFE was available on this flight, I only used the flight map.
The recline button and for these seats, the arm rest is different compared to the other seats.
Emergency procedure instruction can also be found just above the window.
Literature holder consists of the magazine, safety card and a disposal bag.
Inflight Entertainment
Bi-foldable retractable traytable
It is not difficult to take out this table.
The overhead panel
Individual air vent with reading light and call button for the flight attendent.
The layout of the overhead panel for both the window and aisle seat passengers.
What's available for us?
Safety Card
Disposal Bag
Inflight magazine
The airline's fleet
Did you know: The airline used to operate a fleet of 2 Airbus A350-900? This airline had to cut down the fleet cost as it went through a major financial restructure to secure its future.
Currently the airline is operating a fleet of 177 aircraft (Feb 2026 update) which comprises of 39 ATR42/72, 51 Airbus A320neo, 6 Airbus A321neo, 2 Airbus A321F 6 Airbus A330-200, 4 Airbus A330-900neo, 43 ERJ-195 E2, 24 ERJ-195 E1 and 2 (wet-leased) Boeing 767-300ER from Euro Atlantic Airways.
Quite a diversified fleet if has!
Azul Conecta is a subsidiary of Azul Brazilian Airlines and operates a fleet of 9 Cessna Grand Caravan fleet.
We were given a packet of cookies, gummy bear (sweet) and a choice of beverage. Somehow I forgot to take the photo as I was in a deep conversation with my seatmate.
Window view photos
The view of the tarmac from our aircraft.
This is Azul's ERJ-195 E1.
We taxied past a couple of GOL's Boeing 737-800F.
I was fortunate to be sitting on the left side as we had a good view of all 3 terminals while taxing to runway 28R.
This is GOLLOG's 737-800 in the airline's standard livery and currently this is the only aircraft in the fleet. (February 2026)
It looks like a great day for flying!
We taxied to the main taxiway leading us to our assigned runway.
The view of the other terminals came in sight.
This is the terminal 3 where international airlines depart from.
At this time, Terminal 3 has construction going on at one of the piers for a terminal upgrade to increase the capacity .
A couple of common visitors at this airport, American Airlines and Delta Airlines.
These aircraft were parked at a remote parking lot and not scheduled to operate until evening time that day.
This is LATAM's Boeing 787 fleet.
Did you know: LATAM operates a fleet of Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 and all of them were powered by Roll Royce Trent 1000 until recently when the airline took delivery of its first General Electric powered Boeing 787-9 (CC-BMB) and has started commercial flight. There are another 10 + 5 Boeing 787-9 on order and they would also be powered by the U.S made engine. Why +5 you must be wondering, that is because the 5 are on options and they can be activated anytime the airline wants if they do not require those 5 aircraft, they can drop the options and take delivery of just 10 787-9 with GE engines including the one that has just been delivered.
More aircraft parking at the remote parking lot.
LATAM's maintainence facility in sight.
There are other airlines parked at this area and would be towed to the gate about a couple of hours before departure time.
There is another hanger for the Boeing 737 aircraft.
Following Azul's ERJ-190 E1.
The parked 737-700 (PR-SJA) in white belongs to Sideral Linhas Aereas. This is a cargo and charter airline based in Sao Jose dos Pinhais.
We entered the other taxiway leading us to the threshold of runway 28R.
The taxi to the runway 28 took quite a while.
A closer look of the Boeing 737. The other 737 aircraft behind Sideral Linha is a chartered operator.
A better view of the hanger.
Finally, we reached the threshold of runway 28R.
Onto the runway and we started rolling.
We lifted off effortlessly.
A little bit of bumps during the take off.
The view of the city showed up not long after.
Beautiful view isn't it?
I recommend either sitting behind the view or in front of the engine would be better for photography.
We made an almost 180 degrees turn to head towards our destination.
This is why I love flying!
Sao Paulo is one of the largest cities in South America and is estimated to have around 23 million people living in this city!
Cruising in partially cloudy conditions.
We started descending and was "fortunate" to fly through some clouds which we experienced some updraft and downdraft. Fortunately everyone was seated at that time.
Once we were cleared of the clouds, we enjoyed a beautiful vidw of Belos Horizonte.
Seconds before touched down.
We touched down the runway with reverse thrust deployed.
We were behind schedule but I can't fault the airline for it. I feel if we had taken off from runway 10, we would have arrived on time or maybe slightly earlier. That's life!
As this was a small airport, it didn't take long to reach our gate.
This is EuroAtlantic's A330-200 aircraft which was operating for Azul Brazilian airlines and flew on the CNF-MCO (Orlando) route exclusively.
The cloud formation looks nice, do you agree?
We reached our parking lot.
Unlike GRU Airport Terminal 1, we parked at the parking lot with a jetway attached to the terminal.
The right window view
Thanks for the ride, PS-AEF!
What a beautiful colour scheme!
My flight summary
As you can see the time it took to get to runway 24 even with the early push back, we took off 7 minutes behind schedule! This is of course not the Airport Traffic Control's fault. Sometimes change of wind direction may occur anytime of the day and if it happens like this flight, we just have to deal with it.
Welcome to Belo Horizonte Confins - Tancredo Neves International Airport!
This is the airside domestic terminal.
Airport WiFi is available.
Not exactly photography friendly at this part of the airport.
There are charging ports but most of them at this section were not working.
After charging my device for a short while, I made my way out to the landside.
This is the luggage carousel.
This is the landside.
To be continued in my part 2 of my Azul Flying Adventures!
My ratings
Airline's website: 3/5
GRU Terminal 1 Experience: 3/5
In-Flight Service: 4/5
In-Flight Experience: 5/5
Cleanliness of the cabin: 5/5
In-Flight Entertainment (PTV): 4/5
Seat comfort: 5/5
In-Flight Snack: 5/5
Punctuality: 4/5
Cabin interior: 5/5
Overall rating: 43/50
Percentage: 86%
Conclusion
My GRU's airport terminal 1's experience was certainly an eye-opener. This was an unique experience compared to my time at Terminal 2 and 3 mainly due to this terminal being operated by a single airline and the enjoyable walk from the terminal to the aircraft making it more exciting especially to an avgeek like myself. While this terminal is not as big as the other 2, it brings back memories of the airports in the past but like they say as long as its functioning, it doesn't matter. Apart from the self check-in system running out of paper, the experience was relatively a smooth and stress free affair. Airport Wifi is available along with some eateries and shops to check out. I am glad to have finally be able to discover this terminal and would I use it again, why not? Furthermore Azul offer a comfortable cabin on the ERJ-195 aircraft and also I like to try on their other aircraft types especially the older ERJ-195 E1 series. That would take place probably on my next return to South America.
As for the flight, it was a nice and pleasant one with half of the time on board chatting with my seat mate. Flying on another special livery aircraft made this experience even sweeter. While the exterior is special, the interior on the other hand is the standard cabin with the other aircraft which is understandable. This is not Hello Kitty or Snoopy theme aircraft like EVA Air and Starlux which the respective companines would work together with the airline to showcase these cute characters.
As for my return flight, all I can say it was an eventful experience. More on this in my part 2, coming up shortly.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this trip report as much as I do.
Cheers,
Charles Ryan
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