In order to fly and sell tickets for flights to the public, any commercial airline needs to have a valid air operator’s certificate (AOC).
The official approval is granted by the government agency regulating aviation in a given country and requires the airline to prove that it has all the necessary planes, safety systems, staff and financial resources in order to operate and not run out of funds in the long term.
While an AOC can also be suspended or revoked due to a failed safety audit, the most common reason a carrier can lose it often comes down to running out of funds in an industry as notoriously expensive as aviation. Airlines that saw this happen since the start of 2026 include Estonia-based SmartLynx Airlines, Austria’s Mali Air, and Swedish charter carrier H-Bird.
Brazilian airline Total Linhas Aéreas loses AOC: Report
The latest name to join this unfortunate list is Total Linhas Aéreas, a charter airline that launched out of the Brazilian capital of Brasilia in 1998. Running both charter and cargo flights, the airline was the main provider of air mail services for Brazilian national postal service Correios.
Numbers published by the airline stae that it transports an average of 21,000 tons of cargo in a given year while the charter flights it operates between different Brazilian cities are only a fraction of its operations.
As first reported by a local news outlet, the AOC was suspended by Brazil’s Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil (ANAC) on Tuesday, Sept. 1. The measure was described as being “administrative and preventive” which means that the AOC was not fully revoked and can be gained back by Total Linhas Aéreas.
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But until it regains an active AOC, the airline is unable to get off the ground and so any flights scheduled for the coming weeks are canceled by default.
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Why is Total Linhas Aéreas not running any flights, what is known
Little other information on why the AOC was suspended or what the airline is planning to do about it is currently publicly available; Total Linhas Aéreas could not be reached for comment on its situation.
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The airline initially started out as an air taxi company but eventually expanded into the cargo sector of the industry. Total Linhas Aéreas has also, over the years, gone through several mergers. Most recently, Brazilian businessman Paulo Almada Junior purchased 78% of the airline’s shares that had before that belonged to longtime majority owner Alfredo Meister Neto in April 2024.
These airlines also lost their licenses in recent months:
- Izhavia: Russian regional airline Izhavia had its AOC revoked by the country’s aviation regulatory agency in July 2026 as Western sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine left the country’s aviation industry crippled by lack of Western parts and lowered ability to ensure maintenance standards.
- Bestfly Aircraft Management Aruba: The Caribbean branch of the African charter airline Bestfly Aircraft Management Aruba lost its AOC in May 2026. The Aruban branch was established in 2017 to run flights between the Caribbean countries of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.
- Starflite Aviation: Houston-based Starflite Aviation had its AOC license revoked in March 2026, amid FAA claims that owners falsified pilot training records to bypass safety audits.
- AlpAvia: Slovenian charter airline AlpAvia also shut down in March 2026 over financial problems.
- H-Bird: Charter airline H-Bird was declared bankrupt by a Swedish judge after losing its operating license at the end of 2025.
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