In late September it was announced that Delta is buying a 20% stake in LATAM, which has huge implications for the industry. American and LATAM had been pursuing a joint venture, so to see Delta invest and now pursue a joint venture with LATAM surprised many. This also puts American’s position in Latin America at…
Continue reading: American Airlines Increases Flights To Santiago & Sao Paulo
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I'm very happy about it, being based in GRU.
I'm just a bit disappointed that the extra frequency from Miami is an additional redeye. When AA announced a third frequency, I was expecting/hoping AA would bring back their MIA-GRU frequency leaving MIA in the morning.
Still, this is great news.
I don't understand how AA's management is are perfectly okay with
2x 777-200 sitting in Santiago
1x 777-200 sitting in GRU
1x 777-300 sitting in GRU
For 12+ hours each day.
Surely a day flight could work in these locations and help optimize revenue? or maybe even a 5th freedom flight
As long as American keeps their routes that Delta doesnt fly to, they will still easily beat Delta in SA Service. Delta would actually have to launch flights to Cordoba, Montevideo, Brasilia, Cali, Georgetown, and others and compete head to head with American.
High yield business passengers prefer red-eye flights on these South America routes. Yields on daylight flights are terrible. 5th freedom routes are limited by the bilateral aviation agreement with these countries and the economics are usually terrible, just look at Tokyo losing all of its 5th freedom routes by US carriers. Also, while they are sitting during the day in GRU, AA opened a maintenance facility to work on the 5 777s to make better use of that time.
@Steven -- what's interesting is that AA could even operate domestic flights in Brazil, as there is no longer any restriction to the foreign ownership of airlines in the country.
So, (theoretically) AA could operate MIA-GRU-GIG, or MIA-GRU-CWB, MIA-GRU-POA, etc., and even sell the domestic leg as a domestic 5th freedom.
I have no idea if this would make sense from a revenue management, but legally it could be done.
Some of these need to be added to DFW. A lot of smaller west coast markets can’t get to MIA direct on AA....
Yet AA altogether pulled their flights to Bolivia (VVI and LPB). I hope Delta can start direct flights there from Georgia.
@Steven That’s why AA tried to do line maintenance in South America, but the mechanics union said they would lose American jobs, so that got 86’ed.
Where are you expecting these 5th freedoms to go to in a 777 aircraft?
@Ricardo Basing down there as well for parts of the year and I am with you. Makes little sense they made all the flights a redeye from Miami. Seems to be better aircraft utilization in turning around at GRU as well. I guess it may come from the fact that during parts of the year it would need to leave MIA early (Like LATAM) at around 7AM. That means no feeder traffic from anywhere for connections.
At least we have the day flight FROM GRU coming back.
Clicked the link to this page hoping (with no reason to believe) that some of the added frequency would have been to JFK. oh well.
“ While they’re by far the biggest US carrier in Latin America, their real dominance came from their partnership with LATAM, which is one of the largest airlines in the region.”
AA was dominant long before little Chilean LAN became LATAM. The dominance is due to the Miami hub, not LATAM.
You’re clear in your dislike for AA even though you constantly fly them in Miami or elsewhere but have a bite of reality at times.
Would have liked something from JFK, ORD, DFW, or (know this is a complete dream) CLT.
Still the big issue is a lack of connections in South America - hard to get to a place like Recife without the onward connections from LATAM.
Selfishly seeing the 772 MIA JFK is being removed from the 2020 schedule 🙁
It was a joy going back and forth on the larger bird. Now I see the (one) 767 and rest are 738s / 757s narrow bodies.
Guess they are moving the 772 to SA.
@dn10. ORD-GRU was announced a few years back by AA, but never materialized. This route is currently served by a daily UA flight.
US flew CLT-GRU before the merger with AA.
I still hope Delta will offer their new suites LAX-GRU to compete with American, the prices at $6-$8k for biz are absurd as theyre the only airline with a direct flight to LA from Sampa
They will not be able to compete in the Miami-Lima route with a 757 and remove their existing 767 service.
Latam flies the 787-9 and the 767-300 to Lima, meanwhile Delta flies the 767-400.
Both airlines are far superior than AA (in aircraft, seats (economy & business), catering, inflight entertainment and both ground/in-flight service.
Additionally, Delta waives the EQD requirement for non US-residents.
Latam will probably match Delta's FFP.
AA doesn't waive this.
This isn’t new flying. AA has operated the second daily Santiago flight off and on for at least 20 years, and has flown to São Paulo up to 4 times a day.
AA in São Paulo said, "Miami is nice. So let's go there thrice." Miami is nice. Miami is nice. Miami is nice.
Would love to see some sort of direct service to South America from ord on AA. I fly for work to São Paulo. I don’t mind the one stop in Dallas but am surprised that demand doesn’t exist for one direct Flight to South America from ord. Eg sao Paolo or Buenos Aires. The direct United flight is always expensive and reasonably full.
@mick, AA has flown ORD-EZE in the mid-2000s for a brief time. It didn't work. UA has also tried it and it also did not work. Unlikely AA will start ORD-GRU. The market is sufficiently served by the long standing UA route.
Would love to see daytime flights instead of new redeyes. Who decided any of these flights (especially shorter ones to Lima) needed to be redeyes in the first place? Annoying as hell.