LATAM is the largest airline in Latin America, though in reality it has several different "branches." LATAM is based in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. In a vast majority of cases, planes are shared across the divisions of the airline. In other words, a flight from the US to Peru might actually be…
Continue reading: LATAM Argentina May Be Forced To Cut US Flights
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What is happening is that the union (controlled btw by AR pilots in its majority) that if they let foreign aircraft enter to their country it will “destroy their jobs” acclaiming an open skies (which is false).
The other point is that the investment to equipe the aircraft is 1,5 million e/o and they are +20 years so it’s no viable. If they reach an agreement the most probably thing is that they will send them to the scrapyard in favor of news ones (also with newer interiors).
LATAM uses the union as an excuse in order not to change their aircraft.
What the union says it's true. If they give the rutes to international pilots they loose power of negotiations with the airline. So that I guess it won't happen.
What I think will happen will be that LATAM will change their aircraft or adapt the old ones to ADS-B (if it's possible).
They won't loose the best international route they have.
ADS-B is like a 100k mod. Almost every part on board the aircraft is more expensive. I can’t see why this would be a big deal for them.
Norman... So that reinforces my theory.
I have no doubt LATAM is using this excuse to weaken the Labor Union.
LATAM Argentina is not the only one with its own planes. LATAM Brazil also only uses planes registered in Brazil and Brazilian crews (as required by the law), there's no swapping of aircraft for Chilean ones.
This is to a large degree the problem that Ryanair's various unions have run into. Moving of flight crews on contracts from different contracts being assigned to fly planes that get shifted around every which way. It's basically an end run around labor rules and "shopping" for a flag of convenience. This is why you have a million cruise ships registered in Liberia or Monaco.
LATAM Brazil operates Chile-registered 767s from a few locations (not their premium routes e.g. GRU-MIA, LHR, JFK I guess). With Brazilian crew, of course.
Just perform a technical stop in Santiago with Chile registered aircraft? Say a 30 minutes turn around, it circumvents the problem while allowing LATAM to operate the route using much more efficient new aircraft.
@JW
The flight from EZE to SCL is 3 hours, followed by an hour on the ground in SCL. Are you suggesting travelers would accept increasing the length of the EZE-MIA trip by 4 additional hours?
I think one or two years ago there was a GRU-EZE-BOG flight operated by a Brazilian 767 with a brazilian a crew.
The same happened with a SCL-GRU-MXP (B788) and right now with SCL-GRU-TLV (B789). If I am also not mistaken, the same will happen in the near future in the GRU-MAD route, which will be SCL-GRU-MAD with a 789 (as Latam retrofit the 77W, I think).
3 hours eze-scl? ??? what kind of plane are you using JW the time is 1:15 average.