Azul pulls out of e-commerce joint venture with Co

(www.cargofee.com) News Broadcast：

Brazilian passenger airline Azul has pulled out of a proposed joint venture with national postal service Correios to launch a logistics platform serving Brazil’s e-commerce sector.

Azul said that  its cargo business grew revenues by a record 57% in 2018, “significantly higher than originally projected when the company initiated its discussions with Correios”.

Added an Azul spokesperson: “As a result, the company believes it is in its best interest to have the flexibility to enter other more favourable commercial agreements and to participate in future competitive bidding processes of Correios for the distribution of domestic air mail.”

It said that the end of the non-binding commercial agreement has no impact on Azul’s 2019 financial projections.

Only two weeks ago, Azul signed a non-binding agreement with financially troubled Avianca Brasil to acquire its operating certificate, 70 pairs of slots and about 30 Airbus A320 aircraft.

Correios and Azul gained “without restriction” antitrust approval for the joint venture in December 2018, following a December 2017 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the carrier’s Azul Cargo Express unit and Correios.

Activities were expected to begin in the first half of 2018, although the timeline lengthened. Azul, hubbed out of Viracopos airport, is the largest airline in Brazil by number of cities served, and offers 755 daily flights to 104 destinations with a fleet of 118 aircraft.

The new company would have seen Azul take a 50.01% ownership and 49.99% by Correios. Drawing on existing volumes from its joint owners, it was estimated in the MoU that the new company would handle around 100,000 tons of cargo per year.

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