[4] Gol competes in Brazil and other South American countries primarily with LATAM Brasil and Azul.

[8][9] The airline was established in 2000 as Gol Transportes Aéreos S.A. and started operations on 15 January 2001 with a flight from Brasília to São Paulo.

[10] It is a subsidiary of the Brazilian conglomerate Grupo Áurea, based in Minas Gerais state, which has other transportation interests, including Brazil's largest long-distance bus company.

Constantino Júnior was responsible for building the business next to the vice president of the company, David Barioni.

[11][12] In 2007, Gol was owned by AeroPar Participações (75.5%), Venture (17.6%), American International Group (5.4%) and Air France-KLM (1.5%).

[13] The growth in GOL's stock price made the Constantino family a member of the Forbes magazine billionaire list in 2005.

However, on 6 October 2010, the airline announced a change in position by denying any interest in joining an alliance, preferring to remain independent and to establish a "patchwork of code-sharing agreements.".

[17] On 18 March 2010, Gol unveiled the expansion of its maintenance base located at Belo Horizonte/Confins - Tancredo Neves International Airport.

Originally opened in 2006 with the capacity to service 60 aircraft per year (mainly Boeing 737 and 767), the expansion allowed Gol to increase the number to 120.

[19][20] On 23 December 2010, Gol Airlines started an operational partnership with Brazilian carrier Passaredo Linhas Aéreas.

[24][25] On 6 October 2012, Gol started seasonal operations at Miami and Orlando, which are available for Smiles account holders and originated in Brazil only.

[26] In February 2014, Air France–KLM announced it would invest $100 million in Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes in advance of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

[36] On 25 January 2024, Gol declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York to bounce back from high debt costs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gol announced that the Varig brand would continue doing business operating as such, rather than its official name VRG Linhas Aéreas.

[49] The transaction did not involve the original airline, informally known as "old Varig," which continued to exist until its bankruptcy in mid-2010 under the name Flex Linhas Aéreas.

Initially, the Varig brand operated to medium-haul scheduled and charter international destinations within South America and to the Caribbean with Boeing 737-700s configured in two classes, and to long-haul charter international destinations in North America, Europe and Africa with Boeing 767-300ERs configured in economy only.

[53] On 10 October 2012, the purchase received its final approval with some operational restrictions from the Brazilian regulatory agency.

[60] On 27 March 2020, the Brazilian regulatory bodies gave the nihil obstat to the purchase[61] and sale of flights started on 14 April 2020.

Smiles was part of the "new Varig" package bought by GOL, which honored all miles and eventually became its own frequent-flyer program.

[citation needed] On a study conducted in 2011, Smiles ranked third among 24 chosen frequent flyer programs, with 97.1% success of requests made.