Rico Linhas Aéreas

Rico Linhas Aéreas S/A was a Brazilian regional airline with its headquarters at Eduardo Gomes International Airport in Manaus, Brazil, authorized to operate scheduled passenger and cargo services in the Amazon region. The airline was grounded on 1 June 2010 and on 7 June 2011 lost its operational license. Current is a charter company.

Rico Linhas Aéreas
IATA ICAO Callsign
C7 RLE RICO
Founded1996
Ceased operations2010
HubsEduardo Gomes International Airport
HeadquartersManaus, Brazil
Key peopleÁtila Yurtsever, Bastian Bartoli, Metin Yurtsever, Omer Yurtsever
Websitewww.voerico.com.br
Boeing 737-200

History

Rico Linhas Aéreas was authorized to operate as a regional carrier in 1996 but its history is much older. In 1952, the Turkish immigrant Munur Yurtsever, known as Commander Mickey, who worked as an airplane mechanic in Nova Xavantina, Mato Grosso, bought an aircraft and started to fly in the region. The operations consisted of transportation of cargo to gold-mining locations of the region using small aircraft.

During the 1960s, Mickey started a small charter and air taxi company called Taxi Aéreo Rondônia, specialized in flying to gold-mining centers of Rondônia and headquartered in Porto Velho. During the construction of the Trans-Amazonian highway in the 1970s, the company changed its headquarters to Manaus, and provided air services to the big construction companies that were building the highway.

Later, Yurtsever also created Rico - Rondônia Indústria e Comércio, a company that in 1980 would be merged with Taxi Aéreo Rondônia to create Rico Taxi Aéreo.

From 1974 to 1982 Rico Taxi Aéreo maintained a contract with Petrobras to provide air-transportation while it was searching for oil and natural gas in the Amazonian region. At that time Rico operated 23 Douglas DC-3s being the largest private operator of this type of aircraft in the world.

On 1 November 1996, while maintaining its independent air taxi operations, the owners of Rico Táxi Aéreo created Rico Linhas Aéreas, a regional scheduled airline. In 2005 Rico Linhas Aéreas was the largest regional carrier in Brazil serving Acre, Amazonas, Pará, and Rondônia.[1]

However the 2008 economic crisis forced Rico to dramatically down-size its operations: between January and September 2008, Rico cancelled 90% of its operations reducing its participation to 0.02% of the market, operating only within the state of Amazonas.[2]

Rico Linhas Aéreas temporarily suspended all scheduled flights as of 1 June 2010 for a major operational restructuring. Charter operations however continued.[3] On 7 June 2011 the National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil cancelled its operational license[4] but Rico Táxi Aéreo remains operative.

Destinations

In March 2010, before suspending its scheduled flights, Rico Linhas Aéreas operated services to the following destinations:

Terminated destinations before the suspension of services:

  • Acre
    • Boca do Acre, Cruzeiro do Sul, Rio Branco, Tarauacá
  • Amazonas
    • Barcelos, Carauari, Eirunepé, Fonte Boa, Humaitá, Ipiranga, Lábrea, Novo Aripuanã, Parintins, Santa Isabel do Rio Negro, São Gabriel da Cachoeira, São Paulo de Olivença, Tabatinga, Tefé, Vila Bittencourt
  • Rondônia
    • Costa Marques, Guajará-Mirim, Porto Velho
  • Pará
    • Altamira, Belém-Val de Cans, Itaituba, Santarém

Fleet

Rico Linhas Aéreas included the following aircraft configured in all-economy class as of June 2010:[5]

Rico Taxi Aéreo
Aircraft Quantity Passengers Operation Notes
Embraer EMB 110P1 Bandeirante 1 19 1996 – present
Embraer EMB 120RT Brasilia 5 (as of August 2019)[6] 30 1997 – present 3 operated between 1997 and 2008
Cessna Citation 560 XLS 1 present
Beechcraft King Air B350 1 present
Embraer EMB-810C Carajá NE821 1 present
Cessna 208A Caravan 2 present 1 Hydroplane, 1 Terrain
Retired Rico Linhas Aéreas
Aircraft Number Passengers Operation
Boeing 737-200 3 2003 - 2008
Boeing 737-300QC 1 2006 - 2007

Accidents and incidents
gollark: But if you don't constantly have an internet connection to verify your license, you might use it with an expired subscription or something, which is pure evil and must be avoided at all costs.
gollark: Yay "cloud"!
gollark: For phones it does make sense because generally *smart*phones do more than just call people, and having more screen space for general-purpose inputs and stuff is useful. For ship controls, you should probably have, if you're not going to have regular fixed-function inputs, at least the slightly reliable mouse/keyboard combination most things use.
gollark: This is just... trendiness?
gollark: I think there are good reasons for that.

References
  1. "Rico Linhas Aéreas (Brasil)" (in Portuguese). Aviação Brasil. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
  2. Campassi, Roberta (20 October 2008). "Aviação Regional encolhe" (in Portuguese). Valor Online. Retrieved 9 April 2010.
  3. "A Rico informa:" (in Portuguese). Rico Linhas Aéreas. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
  4. "Ata da reunião deliberativa realizada em 7 de Junho de 2011" (PDF) (in Portuguese). ANAC. 7 June 2011. Retrieved 19 June 2011.
  5. "Frota atual das empresas brasileiras" (in Portuguese). Aeromuseu. 1 June 2010. Archived from the original on 26 February 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2010.
  6. "Global Airline Guide 2019 (Part One)". Airliner World: 7. October 2019.
  7. "PT-KVU Accident description". Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 1 August 2010.
  8. "Accident description PT-WRQ". Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 13 August 2011.
  9. "Accident description PT-WRO". Aviation Safety Network. Retrieved 14 July 2011.
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