Azul

Is Azul safe?

Yes. Since its first flight in December 2008, Azul has had no fatal accident and has not written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary an aircraft. Its fleet is young, averaging 7.3 years, and it is regulated by Brazil's National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC). We score it 85.

The weak spot is on the runway. Since 2022 Brazil's accident investigators (CENIPA) have opened serious-incident cases into an Azul jet landing on the wrong runway, another overrunning a short runway, and an April 2026 take-off at Congonhas that brought an Azul jet within a few hundred feet of a Gol 737.

The runway incidents

• Santos Dumont, Rio, April 2022. An E195 cleared to land on runway 20L touched down on the parallel, shorter 20R. Nobody was hurt; CENIPA published its final report, in Portuguese only, in December 2025.
• Salvador, May 2023. At night, with the main runway closed for works, an E195-E2 landed on the 1,518-metre secondary runway and ran 36 metres off the end into grass. The 110 people aboard were unhurt.
• Congonhas, São Paulo, 30 April 2026. An E195-E2 waited about 50 seconds after its take-off clearance while a Gol 737 approached the same runway. The tower cancelled the take-off and sent the 737 around, but the Embraer took off anyway, apparently already off the tower frequency. ADS-B data show the two aircraft about 200 feet and 0.18 nm apart. CENIPA is investigating.

There have been others: a runway incursion at Petrolina in 2022, tail strikesTail strikeWhen the tail of an aircraft touches the runway during take-off or landing, usually because the nose was raised too far or too early.More in the glossary on ATRs and E2s, and a string of in-flight engine shutdowns on ATRs. The one with injuries came at Cuiabá on 25 November 2021, when an A320neo rejected its take-off for a hydraulic warning. A passenger mistook the beacon light for fire, shouted, and opened an exit while the engines were still running. The slide blew away and one woman broke her leg jumping.

Chapter 11 and the new owners

Azul filed for Chapter 11 in New York on 28 May 2025, blaming the pandemic, the 2024 floods that closed Porto Alegre airport, customer litigation and aircraft and engine supply problems. The court confirmed its plan on 19 December 2025, and Azul emerged on 20 February 2026; by June its debt was about R$13 billion lower than a year earlier. Creditors now own much of the company, United invested in the exit, and American Airlines is buying in: Brazil's competition authority approved its US$100 million investment on 7 October 2026.

Flights continued throughout the restructuring under the same certificate. The visible effect on passengers was a smaller fleet: 155 aircraft in June 2026, 21 fewer than a year earlier, with older E1 jets, ATRs and wide-bodies handed back.

How modern is the fleet?

Very. At 30 June 2026 Azul flew 42 Embraer E195-E2s, 53 Airbus A320neo-family jets, five Airbus wide-bodies, 23 ATR 72s and eight first-generation E-Jets, plus 24 Cessna Caravans at Azul Conecta. Excluding the Cessnas, the average age was 7.3 years, and Azul says new-generation aircraft fly about 94% of its domestic capacity. The A320neo family and the E2 are fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary with current avionics.

Azul Conecta and earlier airlines

Azul Conecta, the former TwoFlex, holds its own certificate and flies nine-seat Cessna Caravans to small towns. One of its Caravans crashed into woods after take-off in a storm at Manaus in September 2019, before Azul bought the airline; all ten aboard survived, six with serious injuries. TRIP, a regional airline Azul took over in 2012, lost an ATR 72 in a gear collapse at Altamira in February 2011, with no deaths. Neither is counted in Azul's accident score, and Azul Conecta is not scored here.

Flying Azul safely

• Check the aircraft on small-town routes. If the booking says Cessna or "operado por Azul Conecta", you are on a single-engine nine-seater, not an ATR or a jet.
• In an evacuation, wait for the crew. Cuiabá shows why: opening an exit while engines run can blow the slide away.
• Expect go-arounds at Congonhas and Santos Dumont. Short runways and afternoon storms make them routine.

How we scored it

The accident record (95) and the fleet (88) are the strengths. Oversight (82) matches Gol under the same regulator. Serious incidents (70) and the Brazilian operating environment (70) cost the most. Compare Gol at 78 and Aerolíneas Argentinas at 82.