Brazilian carrier Gol has tapped government financing guarantees to fund engine shop visits, a move that its parent group, Abra, had indicated was likely when discussing rising engine expenditure earlier this year.
The airline has agreed to a $160 million facility backstopped by the Brazilian Agency for Management of Guarantee Funds and Guarantees (ABGF), which supports financing associated with Brazilian exports and services.
ABGF participated because the work will be performed at GE Celma in Rio de Janeiro, which is raising its shop visit capacity to 1,000 engines per year from 600 at its Tres Rios facility, which specializes in CFM International Leap-1A and -1B engines.
Gol operates both CFM56 and Leap-1B engines across its Boeing 737 fleet, although it did not disclose which engines are covered by the new financing, only noting that the facility would “improve its liquidity, enhance financial flexibility and support the continued reliability and efficiency of its fleet.”
Speaking on an earnings call in March, Manuel Irazábal, Abra’s chief financial officer, said that engine expenditures were under the microscope, adding that shop visits in Brazil would offer operational and financing benefits.
“We’re also looking at ways … of using kind of local possibilities to be able to fix engines in Brazil, for example, which would give us also some kind of support in terms of being able to finance those,” Irazábal said.
On its next quarterly earnings call in May, Abra reiterated how expensive engine maintenance was becoming for the group, both directly from more frequent-than-expected overhauls and indirectly from the cost of spare engines needed as cover.
Management noted that about 75% of the group’s roughly $450 million capital expenditure in 2025 was for engine maintenance, adding that capex would rise to roughly $650 million in both 2026 and 2027.
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