Day three of Brazil's emergency airline credit line closed Friday with the operating rules already published, the per-carrier ceiling already fixed, and the disbursement window already on the calendar. Banco do Brasil will run the R$1 billion ($179 million) facility at 100% of the interbank benchmark rate, with the federal government carrying the credit risk and each carrier capped at 1.6% of 2025 gross revenue or R$330 million ($59 million), whichever is lower. The single-tranche release is set for no later than June 28. [1][2]

The paper's Friday brief on the day-two operating rules tracked the loan back to its origin: Petrobras lifted wholesale jet-kerosene 54.6% in April and another 18% on May 1, pushing the price roughly 90% above January and fuel from about 35% of operating costs to about 45%. Latam, Gol and Azul are all just out of U.S. Chapter 11 restructurings; they pay fuel bills every week. Day three is the day the calendar moved from the announcement to the deadline. The loan is working-capital money, six-month tenor, kerosene invoices and payroll only, not a balance-sheet rebuild. The separate R$7.5 billion ($1.34 billion) Civil Aviation Fund package from April handles the longer restructuring. [1]

Valor reported airlines have already trimmed 93 daily flights from the May schedule; Abra, the holding company over Gol, has warned that domestic fares could rise as much as 20%. Brazil's antitrust authority Cade is investigating the three carriers in parallel for possible airfare collusion. [3] The loan is the rescue and the investigation is the receipt, both arriving in the same week.

-- LUCIA VEGA, São Paulo