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Viação Aérea São Paulo S/A or VASP was an airline with its head office in the VASP Building on the grounds of Congonhas-São Paulo Airport in São Paulo, Brazil.〔"World Airline Directory." ''Flight International''. 30 March 1985. (130 )." Retrieved 17 June 2009. "Edificio VASP, Aeroporto de Congonhas, CEP-04368, Sao Paulo, Brazil"〕 It had main bases at Congonhas Airport (CGH) and Guarulhos International Airport (GRU), São Paulo. ==History== The airline was established on 4 November 1933 by the state government of São Paulo and started operations in 1933. VASP was the first airline to serve the interior of the state of São Paulo (São Paulo-São Carlos-São José do Rio Preto and São Paulo-Ribeirão Preto-Uberaba), with two Monospar ST-4. At the start of the 1930s, it was the only carrier to operate with land planes. At the time this was a real exploit due to the lack of adequate non-coastal airports. Many landing strips were improvised in flat pastures. This insistence on using only land planes led to the building in 1936 of one of the country’s most important airports, Congonhas, located in the city of São Paulo, far from the coast. During its early years, Congonhas Airport was popularly known as ''Campo da VASP'' ("VASP's ()field"). In 1939 VASP bought Aerolloyd Iguassu, which included also a license to operate flights to the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina. In 1962 VASP acquired Lóide Aéreo Nacional which had a license to operate nationwide. VASP was therefore able to operate in the entire Brazilian territory. On 6 July 1959, VASP, Cruzeiro do Sul and Varig initiated the air shuttle services between Rio de Janeiro-Santos Dumont and São Paulo-Congonhas airports, the first of its kind in the world. The three companies coordinated their schedules, operations, and shared revenue. The service was a direct response to the competition imposed by Real Transportes Aéreos. The idea, baptized as Air bridge ( in Portuguese), inspired on the Berlin Airlift was so successful that it was abandoned only in 1999. Flights operated on an hourly basis initially by Convair 240 (Varig), Convair 340 (Cruzeiro) and Saab 90 Scandia (VASP). In a matter of a few months the shuttle service led by Varig won the battle against Real, which was anyway bought by Varig in 1961. Sadia Transportes Aéreos joined the service in 1968. Between 1975 and 1992 it was operated exclusively by Varig's Lockheed L-188 Electra which for sometime and for the sake of neutrality did not have the name Varig on the fuselage. Although it had been remarkably well-run for most of its life as a state-owned company, by the 1980s VASP was being plagued by inefficiency, losses covered by state capital injections, and a bloated payroll for political reasons. Under the Brazilian government's neoliberal policies newly introduced at the time, VASP was privatized in 1990. A majority stake was bought by the VOE/Canhedo Group, a company formed by the Canhedo Group of Brasília and VASP employees. Under the command of its new owner and president, Wagner Canhedo, VASP quickly expanded operations in the country, and created international routes, being the second Brazilian company to do so after 1965. However, after many years of mismanagement, financial losses, soaring debt and bad credit, in 2002 it cancelled all of its international operations to concentrate in the domestic market. By that time, VASP had plummeted from the second to the fourth position in the Brazilian airline market, flying an aged fleet of Boeing 737s (most of them of the obsolete −200 series) and Airbus A300s. The company faced its worst crisis in 2004, which led to the suspension of service to many Brazilian cities and the cancellation of flights. As a result, VASP – once a proud, competitive airline – had its domestic market share reduced to 10%. On 27 January 2005, Brazil's then civil aviation regulator, DAC, grounded the airline from operating scheduled services pending a financial investigation. VASP was allowed to operate charter services until April 2005, giving it a chance to prove its financial stability in order to retain its air operator certificate. As of December 2007, the company's only activity was providing maintenance services to other airlines (in spite of all of VASP's troubles, its maintenance expertise and personnel never ceased to be held in very high regard). It had been operating under the new Brazilian bankruptcy law since July 2006, and had its recovery plan approved in 27 August 2006. However, in 2008 it declared bankruptcy. In August 2011, nine of the company's planes (seven Boeing 737-200s and two Airbus A300s), grounded at Congonhas-São Paulo Airport since 2005 and by now badly weathered and dilapidated, began to be dismantled and sold for scrap at auction. Each plane in its current condition was estimated to be worth only 30,000 to 50,000 reais (approximately $20,000 to 33,000 US dollars), considerably less than even its monthly parking and storage fees. The company's fleet of a total of 27 planes had been grounded in similar circumstances since 2005 at various Brazilian airports. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「VASP」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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