Air travel across Brazil entered yet another turbulent chapter this week as passengers at the key hubs of São Paulo, Brasília and Rio de Janeiro woke to a fresh wave of cancellations and delays. With LATAM Brasil, GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes, Azul Brazilian Airlines and several international carriers all affected, the country’s main gateways have experienced mounting disruption that is rippling through domestic and long haul networks alike. The latest data, covering February 13 and 14, 2026, paints a sobering picture for travelers hoping to rely on Brazil’s busiest airports.
Fresh Disruptions Hit Brazil’s Busiest Hubs
The latest shock to Brazil’s aviation system has centered on the metropolitan triangle of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, where dozens of flights have been cancelled and many more delayed in a short span of time. At São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport, the country’s primary international gateway, 153 flights were reported delayed and 2 cancelled on February 13 alone, stranding and rerouting passengers across Brazil and beyond. The operational strain quickly spilled into the following day, with airlines grappling to reposition crews and aircraft while managing an already tight schedule during a busy travel season.
In Brasília, Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek International Airport has once again become a pressure point. Earlier waves of disruption in late 2025 and early 2026 had already highlighted its vulnerability as a domestic hub, and the latest cancellations have reinforced how quickly irregular operations in Rio or São Paulo can cascade into the federal capital. With Brasília connecting Brazil’s heartland to both coasts, the knock-on effects of any shock are felt far beyond the city itself.
Rio de Janeiro’s Galeão and Santos Dumont airports, vital to the nation’s tourism and business travel, are also feeling the strain. Previous incidents, including weather events and temporary closures at Santos Dumont, have shown how fragile the balance is between these two hubs. Recent days have again seen adjustments, cancelled flights and diversions that have forced travelers to change plans at short notice. For visitors landing in Brazil’s postcard city, the journey has frequently begun with lengthy queues and anxious waits at departure screens.
Airlines Under Pressure as Cancellations Stack Up
For Brazil’s leading airlines, the latest wave of disruption is part of a longer, more worrying trend. LATAM Brasil, GOL and Azul, which together carry the majority of domestic passengers, have all recorded elevated levels of cancellations and delays since late 2025. A detailed report on operations in January 2026 at São Paulo–Guarulhos found that the airport registered 159 cancellations in that month alone, a sharp increase compared with the previous year. This rise came alongside a drop of more than ten percentage points in on time performance, underscoring how challenging it has become to keep flights running to schedule when minor shocks quickly snowball.
Across the wider network, recent statistics compiled from Brazil’s largest hubs indicated as many as 360 cancellations and 1,129 delays in a single disruptive episode late last year, most of them linked to LATAM Brasil, GOL and Azul. On that occasion, São Paulo’s Congonhas Airport recorded the highest number of cancellations nationwide, with more than one hundred flights scrubbed, while Guarulhos followed closely behind with tens of thousands of passengers affected. Brasília’s principal airport also saw dozens of cancellations and more than a hundred delays, highlighting how no single hub has been spared.
For international carriers operating in and out of Brazil, the domestic turmoil has introduced further complexity. Long haul services to and from cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Madrid have been forced to adjust their schedules or cancel flights outright when aircraft and crews could not be positioned on time from feeder services. North American and European airlines that typically count on stable connections via São Paulo and Rio have, at times, joined Brazilian carriers in trimming their schedules to cope with operational instability.
Weather, Infrastructure and Operational Strain Combine
Behind the headline numbers is a web of contributing factors that have converged to push Brazil’s air transport system to the limit. Weather has played a recurring role. Strong storms and heavy rain are common during the southern summer, and an extratropical cyclone tracked across São Paulo and the Southeast region in December 2025, forcing Rio’s international Galeão Airport to cancel dozens of flights and accept multiple diversions from São Paulo’s congested airspace. As storms soaked runways and visibility dropped, aircraft backed up at holding points and passengers faced rolling delays.
Yet weather alone does not tell the full story. Infrastructure constraints and operational decisions have amplified the impact of each adverse event. Restrictions introduced at Rio’s Santos Dumont Airport in recent years, intended to rebalance traffic towards Galeão and preserve safety in the city center, have reshaped route networks. Any temporary closure at Santos Dumont, whether for safety incidents such as fuel or oil spills on the runway or for maintenance, now sends additional traffic into an already busy Galeão and to Brasília, where capacity is not always sufficient to absorb the overflow without disruption.
On the ground, staffing and resource allocation have also come under scrutiny. A series of incidents, including a power blackout in 2025 that affected large swathes of Brazil and a collision between an aircraft and a service vehicle on the runway at Rio’s Galeão in early 2025, have reminded regulators and operators how thin margins for error can be. While safety standards remain high and fatal incidents rare, the operational consequences of ground accidents, runway closures and system failures often play out over several days in the form of cancellations and lengthy delays.
Guarulhos and Congonhas at the Epicenter
São Paulo’s dual airport system, anchored by Congonhas for dense shuttle routes and Guarulhos for long haul and much of the domestic network, sits at the heart of the latest crisis. Guarulhos alone handles more flights than any other airport in Brazil, and its January 2026 performance statistics reveal a system operating at the edge of its capabilities. The increase in cancellations alongside rising passenger volumes suggest that even routine disruptions now cascade more easily, particularly during peak travel periods when there is little slack in flight schedules.
The snapshot from February 13, 2026, when more than 150 flights were delayed and several cancelled at Guarulhos, illustrates just how quickly conditions can deteriorate for travelers. With departure boards filled with “delayed” notices, passengers queued for rebooking and sought scarce alternative routes to reach destinations within Brazil or continue onward to North America and Europe. The fact that Guarulhos is the main international gateway means that every local disruption sends ripples through the global network.
Congonhas, meanwhile, continues to bear a disproportionate share of short haul shuttle traffic, especially on the lucrative São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro corridor and on routes linking the financial capital with Brasília and other regional centers. During previous severe disruption, Congonhas reported more than one hundred cancellations and nearly three hundred delays in a single day, figures that underscore how concentration of traffic in a landlocked inner city facility leaves limited room to maneuver. When combined with weather, air traffic control restrictions or airline operational issues, the entire São Paulo system can rapidly grind down.
Brasília’s Hub Role Magnifies Nationwide Impact
Brasília’s airport may not carry the same volume as Guarulhos, but its strategic location at the center of the country makes it a crucial node. When Rio’s Santos Dumont has been forced to suspend operations due to runway contamination or bad weather, flights to and from Brasília have been among the first to be cancelled or rescheduled. Reports from late 2025 detailed multiple days when Brasília logged more than twenty cancellations in quick succession, all tied to difficulties in Rio, demonstrating how fragile interlinked scheduling can be.
During the worst of the disruptions late last year, Brasília’s principal airport recorded dozens of cancellations and over a hundred delays, affecting travelers not just heading to the federal capital, but also those using it as a connection point to the North, Northeast and Central West. The impact was felt particularly hard by business travelers and government officials for whom Brasília is a compulsory stop. With airlines focusing their limited resources on higher volume trunk routes, some regional connections through Brasília were cut or severely reduced, leaving passengers with fewer options.
The latest wave of disruptions has shown that Brasília remains highly exposed to turbulence elsewhere in the network. As Latin America’s airspace continues to grow busier and more complex, calls are growing for a more resilient operational framework that better protects key hubs from knock on effects. For Brasília, that likely means both infrastructure upgrades and closer coordination between airlines and the airport concessionaire when extraordinary events, such as the recent spikes in cancellations, emerge.
Rio de Janeiro’s Dual Airport System Under Scrutiny
Rio de Janeiro presents its own set of challenges. Galeão, the international gateway on Governor’s Island, and Santos Dumont, the downtown airport framed by Guanabara Bay, have long divided traffic between them. Policy changes implemented in recent years, which limited certain routes at Santos Dumont to encourage use of Galeão, were aimed at protecting the long term viability of the city’s main international hub and fostering tourism growth. By late 2025, local hoteliers were already crediting this shift with record visitor numbers and near full occupancy during New Year celebrations.
However, any disruption at Santos Dumont now carries heavier consequences for the broader network. In September 2025, an incident on the runway forced Santos Dumont to close temporarily after a service vehicle spilled oil along a significant stretch of pavement. The closure immediately led to a flurry of cancellations and diversions, many of them affecting flights to Brasília and São Paulo. More recently, strong storms and the passage of a cyclone system across São Paulo and the Southeast caused further cancellations and diversions, particularly at Galeão, where dozens of flights were scrapped or rerouted in December 2025.
As the latest operational difficulties unfold in early 2026, Rio’s airports remain a test case for whether policy, infrastructure and airline planning can align to create a more resilient system. The city’s dependence on airlift for its international tourism, as well as for domestic visitors to major events and conferences, means that the stakes are high when cancellations mount. The most recent disruptions affecting LATAM Brasil, GOL and Azul flights in and out of Rio have again put pressure on authorities and operators to refine contingency plans and improve communication with passengers caught in the middle.
Passenger Experience: Long Queues, Missed Connections and Frayed Nerves
For travelers, the statistics translate into a deeply human experience of uncertainty and inconvenience. At Guarulhos this week, many passengers reported spending hours in snaking check in and customer service lines as they sought rebooking or compensation. Families traveling with young children struggled to find seating in crowded departure halls, while business travelers stared anxiously at laptops and phones, recalculating missed meetings and lost days. Similar scenes have played out at Galeão, Congonhas and Brasília, where airport concourses have periodically become de facto waiting rooms for those with nowhere else to go.
Missed connections have been a recurring feature of the latest disruption. Domestic travelers heading from regional cities through São Paulo or Brasília to international destinations have found carefully timed itineraries unraveling as their first legs ran late. In some cases, they have been forced to overnight at hub airports while waiting for the next available flight, at a time when hotel availability in key cities remains tight. International tourists arriving in Brazil, meanwhile, have sometimes landed on time only to watch their onward domestic flights slip behind schedule or disappear from the boards entirely.
Communication has emerged as a critical stress point. While airlines have improved notification systems via apps and text messages, passengers continue to report confusion about whether flights are delayed or cancelled, what compensation they may be entitled to under Brazilian regulations, and when new departure times can be trusted. The sudden spikes in operational irregularities seen since late 2025 have often overwhelmed call centers and airport desks, leaving many travelers to navigate the uncertainty using fragmented information and word of mouth.
What Travelers Should Do Now and What Comes Next
With Brazil’s key airports experiencing recurring waves of disruption, travelers planning to pass through São Paulo, Brasília or Rio de Janeiro in the coming days and weeks would be wise to adopt a more cautious approach. That means checking flight status repeatedly in the 24 hours before departure, building in longer connection times between domestic and international segments, and, where possible, traveling with hand luggage only to allow more flexibility in case of last minute changes. Booking early morning departures, which are typically less exposed to cascading delays from earlier disruptions, can also improve the odds of a smooth journey.
For those already caught up in the latest disruptions, understanding passenger rights under Brazilian aviation rules can be essential. Airlines operating in Brazil are obliged to provide varying levels of assistance depending on the length and cause of the delay or cancellation, which can include meals, communication assistance and, in some cases, accommodation. While the enforcement of these obligations can be uneven at times of high pressure, well informed travelers who document events and push politely but firmly for what they are owed tend to fare better.
Looking ahead, the operational challenges surfacing in early 2026 may prove to be a turning point for Brazil’s aviation sector. Regulators, airport operators and airlines are coming under mounting pressure from consumer groups and the tourism industry to address the systemic weaknesses laid bare by the recent wave of cancellations and delays. Investments in infrastructure, more robust contingency planning and better coordination between domestic and international carriers are all on the table as potential remedies.
For now, however, travelers heading to or through Brazil’s largest cities must accept that conditions remain volatile. The latest figures from Guarulhos, Brasília, Galeão and other major hubs tell a story of a system under strain, particularly for carriers such as LATAM Brasil, GOL and Azul at the heart of the country’s air network. Until punctuality recovers and cancellations retreat to more manageable levels, flexible planning, real time monitoring and a healthy dose of patience will remain essential companions for anyone navigating Brazil’s skies.