RICO Taxi Aéreo
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| Founded | 1969 | ||||||
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| AOC # | 8,735 - August 2, 2022[1] | ||||||
| Headquarters | Manaus, Brazil | ||||||
| Key people | Átila Yurtsever, Metin Yurtsever, Omer Yurtsever | ||||||
| Website | www | ||||||
RICO Táxi Aéreo LTDA is a Brazilian air taxi company headquartered in Manaus, Amazonas, which offers non-scheduled and charter passenger and cargo flights.
The history of RICO Táxi Aéreo begins with Munur Yurtsever, a fighter pilot born in Skopje, then part of Yugoslavia. Due to political reasons he migrated to Turkey and looking for better opportunities he moved to Brazil. In 1957 he established himself in Nova Xavantina, Mato Grosso. The locals, not being able to pronouce his name, nicknamed him Mickey.[2]
In Nova Xavantina he worked as an airplane mechanic but in no time bought an aircraft and started to fly in the region. The operations consisted of transportation of cargo to gold-mining locations of the region using small aircraft. In 1965 and the business partner Apolonoldo Brito started a small charter and air taxi company called Taxi Aéreo Rondônia, specialized in flying to gold-mining centers of Rondônia and headquartered in Porto Velho. During the construction of the Trans-Amazonian highway in the 1970s, the company changed its headquarters to Manaus, and provided air services to the big construction companies that were building the highway. This company ended in 1969 and on the same year Yurtsever created RICO – Rondônia Indústria e Comércio Air Taxi. in 1980 Rico merged with Taxi Aéreo Rondônia and RICO Taxi Aéreo was born.[2]
From 1974 to 1986 RICO Taxi Aéreo maintained a contract with Petrobras to provide air-transportation while it was searching for oil and natural gas in the Amazonian region. At that time, RICO operated 51 Douglas DC-3s being the largest private operator of this type of aircraft in the world at that time.[2]
On November 1, 1996, while maintaining its independent air taxi operations, the owners of Rico Táxi Aéreo created Rico Linhas Aéreas, a regional scheduled airline. This airline ceased operations on June 1, 2010.[2]
However, Rico Air Taxi contined its operations.[2]
Fleet
Rico Linhas Aéreas included the following aircraft configured in all-economy class as of April 2026:[3]
| Aircraft | Quantity | Passengers | Operation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Embraer EMB 110P1 Bandeirante | 14 | |||
| Cessna Citation 560 XLS | 8 | |||
| Beechcraft King Air B200 | 9 | |||
| Cessna 208B Caravan | 8 Hydroplane 9 Terrain |
1 Hydroplane 1 Terrain | ||
Accidents and incidents
- 7 October 1978: Douglas C-47A PT-KVU of RICO Taxi Aéreo overran the runway on landing at Carlos Prates Airport, Belo Horizonte. All 19 people on board survived, but the aircraft was damaged beyond economic repair.[4]
