Developing Story: LATAM Argentina will permanently cease operations

antipodean

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Will post media links once they are available. This afternoon around 14:00 LATAM group CEO should make an announcement that LATAM subsidiary LATAM Argentina will close down.

Unclear what will happen to the employees at this moment. It sounds like LATAM will maintain international links to Argentina but stop all domestic flights.
 
https://www.infobae.com/economia/20...mios-la-desvinculacion-de-sus-1700-empleados/

"The decision was made in the midst of the brutal impact that the pandemic is having on the airline sector and involves the 12 domestic destinations that the company operates to within the country, 3 regional and one international destination. However, the routes to Santiago de Chile, Brazil and Peru will be maintained and will be operated by companies from those countries."

It is discussing with the government and unions how to fire its staff.

Their EZE-MIA route will cease also.

Any LATAM ticket holders out there should watch this story to understand the possible impact on their future travel plans.
 
i always felt like choosing between aerolineas or latam was like choosing between poop or a s*** sandwich.

i guess now we're all just stuck with poop.

unless you want dangerous poop in which case you have flybondi
 
well I guess Aerolineas got their wish.
One down, two to go. But maybe it is convenient to keep FlyBondi up in the air as the token trophy of competition and an open economy just like LATAM was for so many years.
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"Sources in the sector indicated that the company had several meetings with the Government in the midst of this crisis - it even made repatriation flights for 16,000 Argentines - and presented an official request to make suspensions and reduce wages. “There were six meetings and they were unable to resolve the issue. They forced them to pay 100%, but they did not do so because they filed an administrative appeal ”, commented sources from the industry. "Equally, half of the employees accepted the reduction through individual agreements, both in May and June," they say."
 
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antipodean, how do you see air travel within Latin America over the next 18 months? It seems these bankruptcies and cut backs are going to reduce availability and raise the cost of travel just when so many LA countries will need tourism dollars.
 
It says a lot about how Latam views the Argentine market going forward. Cabotaje was set to resume within a month or two - to the best of my knowledge. The casa matriz is right next door in Chile. And Latam stood to get traffic flow from Delta. Even with all those potential revenue drivers, Latam still viewed the Argentine market's future as so bleak that they shut it down. It says a lot, in my opinion.

As others have said, Aerolineas now gets closer to its domestic monopoly.
 
My future travels within Argentina will be by car. Don't even want to think what Aerolineas' future subsidies will be like.

A few years ago, my cousin was on an Aerolineas flight to Miami. Shortly after takeoff, the pilot came over the loudspeaker; "Will Dr. X please identify himself?" He thought someone had taken sick, and raised his hand. Whereupon the pilot said: " Dr. X, I want to thank you, on behalf of myself and my crew. In this flight, you are the only passenger who paid his fare". The plane was 3/4 full.

Same thing happened to me on a sleeper train to Tucuman - when the conductor came to make our beds, he said we were the only ones in his car to pay the fare. All the compartments were occupied, so I asked him about the other passengers: political passes, relatives' free passes, etc. He was very bitter on the subject - felt people blamed railroad employees for the losses in revenue.

Enough said....
 
Attached is the official statement including advice on what to do if you have a booking with LATAM that is affected.

@Dougie - Inbound tourism alone does not really bring in the money for most airlines or drive capacity and it is also not the most price sensitive. Even for Argentine tourism overall, the more price sensitive national and regional market is far more important than North American or European arrivals. In Latin America, it is homegrown demand (outbound travel) that has triggered the boom of recent years. I would be more inclined to agree with pretty sad outlook of the COPA CEO about the impact this region will endure which is linked to Latin American consumers. Apparently CABA already has 20,000 businesses that have closed permanently, if you imagine many of these small business owners were the people traveling with their families on vacation - it is already a pretty big impact.

@on the brink - AR were already planning to miserabilizar the experience before the pandemic. In January they sent all AR Plus Platinum and Diamond members a mail saying they were scrapping the free upgrades and many other benefits - which they only introduced to compete with LATAM. More room in business class for all the non-revs entonces.
 

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