I booked to travel to and from Brazil with Air France/KLM. The outbound flights were on KLM to Rio de Janeiro and the return was to be on LATAM airlines from Campo Grande (CGR) to Sao Paolo (GRU) and then on Air France to London (LHR) via Paris (CDG). My booking was in business class, but for the CGR-GRU sector we were only placed in economy.  The flight was to leave CGR at 09:25 and get to GRU at 12:05, giving me a comfortable 3 hour transit before the Air France flight to CDG.  But 3 months before departure LATAM cancelled the flight and Air France automatically rebooked me onto another LATAM flight at 5am, which messed up my plans to get to CGR. The only other flight which would have made the connection in GRU was operated by GOL, flight G3 1487, at 05:15.  I phoned Air France to ask to be changed to that flight because it was to be operated by a Boeing 737-8 MAX, which I hadn’t flown on before (and was very keen to), and they obliged without any issue. But even though GOL offers what they call “GOL+ Conforto” with better legroom, I was still only booked into their basic economy.  Their website said I could upgrade to GOL+ Conforto at check in, subject to availability, but it wasn’t possible to upgrade in advance through their rather meagre website and the airline didn’t answer any of the phone calls I made to try to secure the extra space in advance.  And when I’d arrived at CGR a few days earlier, on the really quite good Azul airlines, I noticed the GOL office was unmanned. This really was a low cost, low service operator!

So Mr A and I set off by taxi from our hotel at midnight for the 300km journey to CGR from our safari lodge in the Pantanal region.  When we got to CGR we found the check in staff didn’t speak English, but a Supervisor came along with very basic English skills and he agreed to upgrade us at no cost.  We saw a sign at check in promoting a special partnership between GOL and Air France/KLM, which possibly accounted for that free upgrade, but it made me question even more why Air France couldn’t book me into GOL+ Conforto in the first place. Then we discovered the flight wasn’t going to be operated by a MAX, just a standard Boeing 737-800, which disappointed me.  There wasn’t a GOL lounge for Conforto pax, nor one I could access with my Priority Pass card.  But never mind, boarding commenced very soon after we cleared security and got to the gate, because check in had taken so long.  Still in the dead of night, we walked across the apron to our waiting 10 year old B737-800, registered PR-GZS, at 04:30.  But because I walk with a stick the Flight Attendants didn’t allow me to sit next to Mr A in row 1, and I had to move to row 2.  Strange that check in didn’t know this rule.

Legroom was OK, at 10cm more than basic economy, but you’ll see in the photo that I didn’t have a safety instruction card. In fact there was only one card per set of 3 seats, which in Europe would be illegal, but seems to be fine with Brazilian aviation authorities!

Also contrary to European safety rules, all the window blinds were closed and the FAs didn’t ask for them to be opened for takeoff and landing, which made me quite nervous.

But on the positive side, doors closed 15 minutes early at 04:55, we pushed back at 05:00 and took off from runway 24 at 05:08.  Contrary to what GOL claims on its website, there was no onboard service at all. I think this was a government mandated covid rule, but we didn’t even get sanitary wipes upon boarding; you can’t discard service because of covid and then not follow standard covid sanitisation!  And unlike with Azul, we weren’t even offered water.

After a painful flight (because of my lack of sleep) we landed on GRU’s runway 09R at 07:28 and we were on stand 15 minutes early at 07:40 and then an autistic meltdown began!  Because we arrived into Terminal 2, and had to get to Terminal 3 for our Air France flight, I had arranged wheelchair assistance.  Said assistance was provided by GOL staff, not airport staff, which is more common. The assistants didn’t speak English and didn’t seem at all interested in providing me with assistance.  Instead of taking me to Terminal 3 they took me just a hundred metres or so from our arrival gate to another gate area which was full of other disabled pax and which looked like the waiting room for death!

I asked to be taken to a business class lounge, which I was entitled to, but they refused. Several GOL staff came to me to rant in Portuguese, but eventually one man who spoke English decided to patronise me and talk to me as if I was severely retarded. He told me my connection was going to be “very soon” and this was where I had to wait. My connection was actually in 7hrs 30 minutes! So I retrieved my boarding pass which they had ripped out of my hand, got out of the wheelchair and set off with Mr A to the nearby Terminal 2’s domestic Plaza Premium lounge, which I could access with my Priority Pass card.  It was dreadful. No windows and poor food in the dark dining area.

The lounge offered a very poor selection of plastic-wrapped “sandwiches”, above which was a hand-written time they had been put on display (5am, and it was now 8am).

But they also offered some warm food ‘made to order’. We went for scrambled eggs with bacon, and watched as they made it in a microwave. It was disgusting. That’s when Mr A discovered there was another lounge we could use in Terminal 3, before the Air France lounge opened 11am, so we set off to Terminal 3, which turned out to be a painful 30 minute walk for me.  It was called the Espaco Banco Safra lounge and was used by Star Alliance airlines and Priority Pass cardholders.

My experience with GOL was not a good one, for various reasons such as the aircraft switch, the lack of English speaking staff, the lack of onboard services and the substandard safety and Covid protocols.  But worst of all was the appalling service given to me as a wheelchair passenger.  Brazil has three principal low cost domestic airlines; GOL, LATAM and Azul.  I’ve had bad experiences with LATAM in the past, and they are in a financially precarious situation, so if you’re looking to book domestic flights in Brazil I would strongly recommend Azul.  For some reason GOL advertises itself as “GOL – Lineas Aereas Inteligentes” (intelligent airlines).  I saw nothing particularly intelligent about them! 1/10