Watch! AZUL Business Class, Sao Paulo-Lisbon

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Hello and welcome to another video. Today I am at Viracopos Airport here in Campinas next to

Sao Paulo. This is actually Sao Paulo's third airport and this is where Azul Airlines have

their main operating base. That's who I'm flying with today. I'm flying with Azul back from Sao

Sao Paulo Campinas to Lisbon in Portugal. It's going to be out nine to nine and a half hours

in business class. I'm really looking forward to it. This is a rather different airline for a few

reasons. Let's go check it out. By road, Viracopos is over an hour from Sao Paulo, but Azole lay on

a free bus, whether you're traveling in business or economy class. The bus drops you right outside

the terminal and your bags travel in a locked compartment underneath the seats. There's no need

and in fact no way to book the bus. You just turn up and get on. My bus was not particularly busy

and I think there's a very low risk of you not being able to get on board. I was actually quite surprised to find that Viracopos Airport was historically

the original main international airport of Sao Paulo. The main airport now is at Guaralos

and that opened in 1985. One thing I should say if you're flying from here is to go down to the

basement, the arrivals level, because this is where most of the places worth eating and drinking are

it is not particularly well signposted if you come in at street level. Check-in was completely painless and took only a couple of minutes

Business class check-in was absolutely deserted. There's also an Azul lounge, which is located on the first floor immediately after security

I think it's important to stress before I get into this trip report that Azul are not a legacy airline

They're a relatively new entrant to the market. As such, they pitch their product and their pricing a fair bit below the competition

in order to attract a different market. So don't expect any hot meals in the lounge

or a particularly inspiring range of food and drink. In all honesty, my flight was over nine hours long

so I was planning to eat on board anyway. There's no compelling need for pre-flight dining here

So it's far from being the world's best business class lounge, but to be honest, it's a perfectly adequate place

to hang out for an hour before your flight departs. Just heading down now to gate A08 for my flight to Lisbon

Now, walking around this international arm of the airport, I can't help but notice there are only three international flights departing this evening

My one to Lisbon, one behind me to Porto, and another one to Fort Lauderdale in Florida

Now, this airport, I was googling Virucopos Airport and noticed two things

Firstly the reason this airport the international arm is so quiet is because there a recession on in Brazil that it just working its way out of at the moment And that means that this airport hasn been able to attract the traffic that it was originally supposed to The second interesting thing that I found out about

this airport is the name Vilacopos means to turn over glasses in quick

succession according to Wikipedia. Now loosely translated that means to get drunk or to consume a lot of alcohol at once and I think that's one of the best

names for an airport I've ever heard. Another one that really comes to mind is

the name of Sofia's airport, which is in Vrazdebna in Bulgaria, just outside Sofia

Vrazdebna is a town and that basically means hostile, which is definitely the other end of

the scale for airport names. So that's a bit of trivia for you. Just waiting for priority

boarding to happen. And yeah, looking forward to getting on board and finding out what this

unique airline is all about. My flight today would be operated by this Airbus A330 in a special

blue livery. A quick reminder that you can catch all of my trip reports in written format on

Simple Flying. The link to the article is in the description below

Business class occupies the front cabin and is in a staggered 1-2-1 configuration

True window seats like this one here, 4A, are the best ones to have because they offer

optimum privacy. However, I was stuck in 5C, which is one which adjoins the aisle

There was a pre-flight choice of wine, water or orange juice and a small chocolate served

before takeoff. Cheers! I Musik Takeoff was brisk and smooth and into a beautiful Brazilian sunset

Lisbon is 4,908 miles from Viracopos, and the flying time of this flight was 9 hours

and 25 minutes. The type of seat used in business class is called the Sojerma Solstice seat, and you can

find this on various other airlines, including Etihad. It isn't the most up-to-date seat on the market, but what I do like about this seat

is the fact that you can move your seat forward to meet the table, rather than the other way around

There's also in-seat charging, and this little device here is the remote control for controlling

the in-flight entertainment screen. Azul is a Brazilian airline. Most of its market comprises the domestic Brazilian aviation market

and also in connecting Brazil with its cultural cousins in Portugal. However, it does also operate some flights to the US

and that means there's an extensive English language selection of film and TV shows

However, don't expect miracles from the headphones. My friend Jeb Brooks is probably the person you're going to want to speak to

if you want some decent ones. Sadly, Azzel has yet to fit its aircraft with WiFi

Azzel was founded by David Nielerman, the same person that founded JetBlue in the US

The commitment to enthusiastic and personable service was obvious to see. The cabin crew working my aisle gave me exactly the same kind of enthusiastic service that

I'd come to expect from JetBlue, who are my favourite US domestic carrier

All of that being said, I can't say that the food was a particular highlight on board

this flight. If you've followed my channel for a while, you'll know that this year I've flown quite

a few international business class products, and I've been really impressed in general

with the standard of food. There was nothing particularly wrong with the food on board as all, but it didn't really

live up to the heights offered by some of the main legacy airlines that I've tried

There was nothing in particular that was wrong with the food, but I have to say that I won't

remember these dishes much beyond making this video. Still I was pretty happy to see ice cream as a dessert option, because that is supposed

to be something you can't get wrong. Isn't that right, Delta Airlines

Azul hand out amenity kits in business class on all of their long-haul flights, and the

bag is reasonably attractive and pretty well-stocked in fact with all of the things that you would

expect on a long-haul flight. Talking of toiletries, the toilet itself was very clean throughout the flight. The little

blue light at the bottom of the console there is a little nod an inexpensive one too towards the company colour scheme I spent the rest of the evening watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty starring Ben Stiller

My advice for this film is to avoid it like the plague. Soon it was time to turn in for the night

and one of the benefits of these solstice seats is the fact there's plenty of storage

so if you change into your pyjamas, like I do, there's plenty of room to shove your clothes into one of the storage units

In common with many airlines now, there's no turn-down service in business class, so you need to lie your sleep flat yourself and pop out the bedding, which is pretty easy to do

However, there's no sheet or mattress topper provided. I was a bit worried that having an aisle seat, I'd be disturbed during the night, but thankfully this didn't happen, and the seat was really comfortable and perfectly wide enough for me to get a solid six hours of sleep, which is all I asked for on a long flight

About an hour from Lisbon, I was woken by the crew, as I requested, for my breakfast

The mood lighting was turned in attractive orangey-pink to resemble the dawn

and to get everyone's body clocks back in sync. Breakfast, just like dinner, was fine and inoffensive, but in equal measure, completely unmemorable

With breakfasts, I often use the same principle as ice cream. I try and pick the dish that I think is least likely to go wrong

In this case, it was an omelette. So let me conclude this video with a summary

I paid €950 one way for this flight, which was from Sao Paulo, Viracopos to Lisbon

and then on to London with Tap Air Portugal, a co-chair partner of Azul

Now, this is really, really cheap. It equates to around £855 sterling, or about US$1,050

That price is extremely cheap in the grand scheme of things, and so I'm perfectly happy that my experience with Azzel was mostly okay

There was nothing in particular that was wrong with the experience and although the experience itself didn't hit the heady heights

of some of the business class products I've tried this year, that's fine because it was an awful lot cheaper

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