On Sunday, interim President Michel Temer told the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper that to help reduce the fiscal deficit for 2017 he will consider the privatization of the Congonhas (SP) and Santos Dumont (RJ) airports. There are two models under discussion one would keep the government airport authority Infraero as a minority partner while giving most control to private companies, the other would keep Infraero as the biggest stockholder (with 51 percent of shares) while private companies would manage the airports.

Six airports have already been transferred to the private initiative – these airports are responsible for 45% of the passengers travelling by air in the country. Critics say that private contractors would seek to bring in new staff with new contracts and less oversight by the state which would amount to thousands of people losing their jobs.

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Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles aims to reduce the deficit to 139 billion reais next year and told the O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper that the government will need 80 billion reais of spending cuts to reach that target.