Gregory Polek has spent his entire career in aviation journalism with AIN, starting as a proofreader and assistant to then-managing editor Mary Mahoney in 1995 after serving an internship with&nbsp;New Jersey Monthly&nbsp;magazine and completing his B.A. degree in English/Writing at New Jersey’s William Paterson College. By 1997 Polek accepted a position as an associate editor, covering the regional airline beat for&nbsp;Aviation International News&nbsp;in place of retiring industry veteran Don Anderson. The assignment took Polek across North America and Europe to profile regional airlines varying in size and mission from the likes of floatplane operators Kenmore Air and Chalk’s Ocean Airways to regional jet operators such as SkyWest and American Eagle. Today, in his dual role as Air Transport Editor and International Airshow Editor, Polek writes, edits, and manages AIN’s commercial aviation content while overseeing each of the company’s daily international air show publications in Paris, Farnborough, Singapore, and Dubai. Most recently Polek has assumed oversight of daily coverage of the Helicopter Association International’s annual Heli-Expo convention.

Senior Editor

Gregory Polek

Brazil’s TAM Airlines plans to add between four and six new regional routes every year into the foreseeable future, regardless of whether or not the country’s legislature approves any regulatory changes meant to encourage regional airline development, the airline announced Friday. It added that it has reached an advanced stage of negotiation with Embraer and other manufacturers on a planned firm order for 18 airplanes in the size category of Embraer’s E2 E-Jets and options on another 10. TAM said it expected to conclude negotiations by the end of next year’s first quarter.

 


The Brazilian government has proposed legislation to take effect next year called the Regional Aviation Development Program (PDAR), meant to subsidize regional service to airports that handle less than a million passengers a year. However, Brazilian lawmakers have yet to approve the measure and disagreements over the formula for determining the size of airplanes to benefit from the subsidies persist.

 


To TAM, however, developing airport infrastructure in small cities will prove more important than the subsidy model the government plans to regulate, noted TAM CEO Claudia Sender. &nbsp;“Regional aviation is where we started; it is in our corporate DNA,” she said. “We serve cities in the so-called average-density markets and, therefore, we are already established in this segment...Given its vast size, regional aviation is vital to Brazil.”

 


TAM cites fleet investments of $4.6 billion through 2018 as evidence of its willingness to help expand domestic aviation in Brazil. That investment, which covers 50 new aircraft, does not include the 18 airplanes on which it plans to decide by the end of the first quarter. Until those airplanes get delivered, it said, it would operate regional routes using leased equipment or airplanes already in its fleet. Its 144-seat Airbus A319s are its smallest airplanes.

 


TAM expects late next year to become the first airline in the Americas and the fourth in the world to take delivery of the Airbus A350. “We are also investing around US$183 million within the next two years in over 200 projects that will provide for new services and technologies for our customers, productivity and sustainability technologies, and infrastructure for our employees,” said Sender. “This initiative reinforces our confidence in the country and our desire to advance even further.”

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