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The story
The airline was established on 4 November 1933 by the state government of São Paulo, and began operations on 12 November of that year. 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-4s. At the beginning of the 1930s, it was the only carrier to operate with land planes in its service area, an advantage due to the lack of adequate non-coastal airports; many landing strips were improvised on flat pastures. The insistence on land planes led to the 1936 construction of one of Brazil's most important airports: Congonhas 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 airfield").
VASP bought Aerolloyd Iguassu in 1939, including a license to operate flights to the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina. In 1962, VASP became a national airline when it acquired Lóide Aéreo Nacional and its license to operate nationwide.
VASP, Cruzeiro do Sul and Varig initiated air-shuttle service between Rio de Janeiro-Santos Dumont and São Paulo-Congonhas airports on 6 July 1959, the first of its kind in the world. The three companies coordinated their schedules and operations, and shared revenue. The service was a direct response to competition from Real Transportes Aéreos. The idea, Air Bridge (Ponte Aérea in Portuguese), was inspired by the Berlin Airlift. It was successful, continuing until 1999. Flights initially operated on an hourly basis by Convair 240 (Varig), Convair 340 (Cruzeiro) and Saab 90 Scandia (VASP). In a few months the shuttle service led by Varig won the battle against Real, which was bought by Varig in 1961. Sadia Transportes Aéreos joined the service in 1968. It was operated exclusively between 1975 and 1992 by Varig's Lockheed L-188 Electra, which for some time did not have the name "Varig" on the fuselage for neutrality.
Although it had been remarkably well-run for most of its life as a state-owned company, by the 1980s VASP was plagued by inefficiency, losses covered by state-capital injections, and a bloated payroll for political reasons. Under the Brazilian government's new neoliberal policies, 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 Wagner Canhedo, its new owner and president, VASP quickly expanded operations in the country and created international routes. Until VASP's entry into the international market, Varig had been Brazil's sole international airline since 1965. After many years of mismanagement, financial losses, debt and bad credit, in 2002 it cancelled its international operations to concentrate on the domestic market. VASP had fallen from the second to fourth place in the Brazilian airline market by then, flying an aging fleet of Boeing 737s (most of them in the obsolete −200 series) and Airbus A300s.
The company faced its worst crisis in 2004 as new airlines rose in the country, which led to the suspension of service to many Brazilian cities and the cancellation of flights. On December 31, 2004 VASP began retiring their Boeing 737-300s. As a result, the airline's domestic market share fell to 10 percent. On 27 January 2005, Brazilian 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 and retain its air-operator certificate.
VASP operated Boeing 737-300s around early 1986 and they were officially retired in 2004.
VASP had stopped flying altogether by December 2007, and was reduced to providing maintenance services to other airlines. Even during the worst of the company's troubles, its maintenance expertise and personnel had always been held in high regard. It had been operating under the new Brazilian bankruptcy law since July 2006, and had its recovery plan approved on 27 August of that year. However, VASP declared bankruptcy in 2008.
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In October 2020, nine of the company's planes (seven Boeing 737-200s and two Airbus A300s) had been grounded at Congonhas-São Paulo Airport since 2005 and were badly weathered and dilapidated; they began to be dismantled and sold for scrap at auction. Each plane in its current condition was estimated to be worth 30,000 to 50,000 Brazilian Reals (about US$6,000 to $10,000, as of 2025), considerably less than its monthly parking and storage fees. The company's fleet of 27 planes had been grounded in similar circumstances since 2005 at several Brazilian airports.
From Wikipedia’s article on VASP, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3