I just found out that both American Airlines and Delta Airlines will fly directly to the Northeastern Brazil. The beaches down there are incredible and its a great place to relax and sip a drink by the ocean. Every time that I've gone there, I had to spend two hours flying past Salvador (the big city and capital of Bahia) to Sao Paulo, then spend 2-3 hours waiting for a connection, then fly 2 hours back north again--that's more than 1/2 the flying time from NY all the way to Sao Paulo! I just read an article (http://www.airlinecity.com/2008/07/25/brazil-and-the-amazon/) that stated the number of flights between the US and Brazil was limited to 105 flights a week, but now its been raised to about 150, by a new air agreement by the US and Brazil, so American and Delta want to start flights later this year to some cities in the north. This is great news for those that don't want to spend precious vacation time overflying your final destination!