LATAM launches major international expansion
By Steve Creedy Mon Jan 15, 2018
Some six years after Chile’s LAN and Brazil’s TAM merged to form LATAM, the combined carrier and its affiliates have embarked on a major international expansion.
Armed with a fleet of 302 aircraft ranging from older 767s to made-for-long-haul 787 Dreamliners, the south American airline group is launching new routes to the U.S., Europe and its own backyard in South America.
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Beginning in July is its Boston-São Paulo route, a nonstop affair flown initially with 767s fitted with 30 Premium Business and 191 economy seats.
The aircraft will make the trip four times per week, marking Boston’s first nonstop service to Brazil, a country beginning to recover from recent economic woes.
Come July, the schedule calls for nonstop 767 service from São Paulo to Rome, a passage presaged perhaps when Pope Francis makes his trip to Latin America.
São Paulo-Rome will operate four times weekly too. Francis will be flying LATAM during his papal journey.
By the end of 2018, LATAM hopes to be serving Tel Aviv. Flights would originate in Santiago, Chile, stopping en route at São Paulo before heading out over the South Atlantic to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport. This route is subject to governmental approval.
Sticking closer to home, during the South American summer of 2017- 2018, LATAM is primed to open a route to Chilean Patagonia, at Puerto Natales to be specific.
Puerto Natales is 70 miles (112kms) from Torres del Paine National Park, a place so sublime that VirtualTourist labels it the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World.’
LATAM will employ an A320 on the flight from Santiago. In January and February there will be a quartet of weekly flights.
All these routes add up—especially the intercontinental long-hauls. Once they’re launched, LATAM will fly to 144 destinations in 27 countries.
Since the onset of 2016, it has launched service on 26 international routes including Lima- Washington, DC and Santiago-Melbourne.
The westbound Santiago-Melbourne leg takes about 15 hours and is flown by a 787-9. That makes it the longest nonstop ever in LATAM’s history.
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