I want to travel to Brazil this summer to learn Portuguese and sightsee, but I'm worried about travelling to and around Brazil by air. The courses are in Maceio or Bahia, and I would need to take internal flights, but I’ve been told that these might not be safe. Parminder Lally, by email

Sunday Times travel expert, Richard Green, responds: Despite the terrible accident that occurred in Brazil last September, when 154 passengers and crew died after a mid-air collision, air travel in Brazil remains a very safe way to get around this vast country.

The biggest Brazilian airlines are Gol (www.voegol.com.br), TAM (www.tamairlines.com), and BRA (www.voebra.com.br), all of which operate modern fleets of western-built aircraft. It’s true that TAM have had several incidents with their older Fokker 100 aircraft, but this type of plane is being phased out, and being replaced by newer aircraft. They don’t tend to operate the routes into Maceio or the bigger cities in Bahia.

You may have heard about Varig (www.varig.com.br) being in trouble too, but this is mainly a financial matter, and the airline now operates far fewer planes and routes than it did before. For the moment, there aren’t any Brazilian airlines flying to the UK, and there aren’t any Brazilian airlines on the EU list of banned carriers, which in any case, tend to be in Africa and Central Asia.

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