AIR TRANSPORT AND REGIONAL BRAZILIAN AVIATION: STUDY OF DEVELOPMENT VECTORS AND PROPOSALS OF PROMOTION POLICIES FROM CENARIZATION TECHNIQUES
This research aims to discuss the main challenges inherent to the Brazilian airline sector at the national level, with emphasis on regional aviation. Despite the strong growth of commercial aviation in recent years, with the increase in the number of flights and passengers carried, a representative number of Brazilians still do not use it. This situation is associated with the country's economic development trajectory, based on the regional centralization of economic activities and the income-concentrating structure. Similarly, this dynamic had an impact on the configuration of Brazilian regional aviation as a small number of users concentrated on the higher income segments of the population, who fly regularly and frequently, while a significant number of Brazilians remain outside the modal. The reasons for this phenomenon are diverse, but they are concentrated in two key dimensions: the highly dependent and interrelated character of the sector to external impact variables and the way the Brazilian State has conducted the management of the commercial aviation system in the country. Based on interpretations of evolutionary theory and development, the work contextualizes the aerial segment and explores its specificities and its relations with the trajectory and dynamics of the country's economic development. It studies the relationship between commercial aviation and its key vectors, using qualitative research applied to a group of specialists in the sector; basic descriptive statistics are used to build a panel of prospective scenarios (framework) to map the key issues related to the expansion of commercial aviation in the regional scope in the medium term. At the microeconomic level, the research points to the need to strengthen and expand public policies to encourage the sector; integrate such policies into national development programs and ensure a favorable regulatory environment that expands investments in airport infrastructure. At the macro level, promoting a favorable economic environment associated with the change in the pattern of income distribution, without which the access of more Brazilians to the air modal will remain restricted.