Introduction

Every day, approximately 2500 flights, operated by over 50 airlines, arrive or depart from a brazilian airport and are registered by the National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC). ANAC provides that data, allowing us to analyse it in order to answer questions like: what airline has more delayed or canceled flights? What’s the busiest airport in Brazil? A few os those insights are presented here:

Exploratory Analysis

What are the main routes in Brazil?

By airport
By city

Which airline operates more flights in Brazil?

By number of flights
By number of routes

What are the busiest airports in Brazil?

By number of flights
By number of routes

What are the main routes for each airport?

Val De Cans
Guarulhos
Congonhas
Galeao
Brasilia

Visualizing routes by airport:

Val De Cans
Guarulhos
Congonhas
Galeao
Brasilia

Visualizing routes by airline:

Azul
Avianca Brasil
Gol
Tam

We can clearly see how Azul has a bigger focus in regional flights, and how Avianca Brasil only operates in the southern part of the country. Meanwhile, Tam is clearly the leader in international routes, specially departing from Guarulhos (Sao Paulo).

What airline has more delayed flights:

In %
In Minutes

What are the most delayed routes?

In %
In Minutes

What are the most common reasons for delays?

The number of delays caused by “Aeroportos com Restricoes Operacionais” (Airport with operational restriction) in flights operated by TAM really stands out. What’s the airport where this happens the most?

Clearly, the problem is at the Guarulhos Airport. The 8 routes with the biggest number of delays caused by “Airport Operational Restriction” involve the airport. However, the problem seems to only affect TAM. To confirm this hypothesis, let’s take a look at the number of delays at TAM that were justified this way compared to the other airlines in the same airport:

It is easy to see that a huge proportion of delays in flights operated by TAM that arrive/departure from Guarulhos are justified by “Airport Operational Restrictions”. Actually, a huge proportion of delays in flights operated by TAM Transportes (TAM’s transportation division) also has the same justification. However, a lot of flights operated by other companies arrive in Guarulhos at the same time and don’t face airport restrictions. The most probable conclusion is that TAM needs to drastically improve their flights schedule involving the busiest airport in Brazil. The second most probable conclusion is that TAM is just lying about their delay reasons in flights involving Guarulhos.

At what time and day of the week do delays happen the most?