@soavw: I know the northeast a bit. some years ago i was quite happy that I knew some basic portoguese language skills since I had to do the the whole appch in portugese going into REC. My F/O was completely out of the picture and I had to tell him what ATC just said (ATC was not even able to say yes or no). O.K. this was in the middle of the of the night and the 2nd class contoller was on duty not even having the basic english skills...
@toffair: I appreciate your efforts talking english to the controllers... Why donīt you just reply in english when they try to get to you in portuguese? We, or our companys pay and ATC has to provide the service expected. E.g. going into PNZ with other traffic around at an uncontolled airfield a common language is of utmost importance in order to improve flight safety.
Iīm sure that you, the brazilan pilots can do ATC in english. Please start or continue doing so like the greek pilots did 15 years ago. The number of "close calls" reduced dramatically in Greece since everybody could understand each other... In the interst of safety all carriers in Brasil should change their ops manuals to have english the only language used in ATC language.
Ate logo,
HURZ