Brazilian airline Gol on Monday announced a 186-percent rise in ticket sales on Brazil-Argentina air routes in 2006.

Gol's sales of tickets to Argentina (and to Brazil from Argentina) amounted to 70 million U.S. dollars in 2006 from 24.4 million U.S. dollars in 2005.

The company opened the routes to and from Argentina in December 2004, its first international destination. The routes represented 4 percent of the company's total sales in 2006.

The airline runs 66 weekly flights between the two countries, which arrive in such Argentine cities as Buenos Aires, Rosario and Cordoba from several Brazilian airports. Gol also runs air routes linking Buenos Aires to Asuncion in Paraguay and Santiago in Chile.

The airline currently holds a market share of 19 percent in the sales of international flight tickets in Brazil.

Source: Xinhua