Brazil is pursuing foreign airlines to help boost competition in the domestic sector, and JetBlue is among a trio of carriers interested in tapping the region’s largest air travel market.
Initial discussions are planned at this week’s ALTA Airline Leaders Forum.
"We are going to talk with JetBlue, we are going to talk with Volaris, and we are going to talk with Sky Airline, which is Chilean," Ronei Glanzmann, Brazil’s civil aviation secretary, told Reuters.
"These are conversations to introduce Brazil to them."
Brazil has been trying to open up its domestic market for some time, which is mostly dominated by three airline groups.
Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro has paved the way for foreign airlines to set up domestic operations in the country but so far interest has been lukewarm.
This is in part down to the high operating costs including fuel taxes that that be as high as 25% Reuters reported.
"We don’t see anything changing in the short term regarding a new low cost airline operating domestically. For a company to start flying in Brazil, they will need to know that they will have the same costs as we do," said Eduardo Sanovicz, chief of Brazilian airline trade group ABEAR.
