Bartolomeu de Gusmão Airport was a Brazilian airport built to handle the operations with the rigid airships Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg. The airport was named after Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão (1685–1724), a Portuguese priest born in Brazil who did research about transportation with balloons.

Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul was the second oldest airline of Brazil, tracing its origins to 1927, when it was founded as Syndicato Condor, a subsidiary of Deutsche Luft Hansa. Syndicato Condor retained rights and interests of a former German trade company, Condor Syndikat, which previously operated passenger and mail services in Brazil. It was renamed Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul in 1943. In 1975, Varig, a Brazilian airline which shared very similar origins, acquired its controlling shares. In 1993, it was finally merged into Varig.