Boston Airport has been experiencing a huge amount of longhaul growth the past few years, as the airport has gone from having just a couple of flights to Europe, to having over a dozen longhaul routes.
However, one region to which they’ve been quite weak is South America, where they historically haven’t had much service, despite the best efforts of the airport authority. So the airport just landed a huge win when it comes to that goal.
LATAM will launch flights between Boston and Sao Paulo as of the summer of 2018. The exact dates, frequencies, etc., haven’t yet been announced, though a LATAM executive has confirmed the new route.
Map via gcmap.com
According to the Boston Business Journal:
“The start of the direct route to São Paulo not only continues to demonstrate our commitment to strengthening the network between the US and South America, but reinforces our position as the leading carrier within the region,” said LATAM executive Pablo Chiozza in a statement.
Apparently Massachusetts is home to the second largest foreign born Brazilian population in the United States, with over 60,000 residents (which actually doesn’t sound like that many, especially in the context of launching a new flight).
The flight will cover a distance of ~5,370 mile, so it’ll be Boston Logan’s southernmost flight. LATAM Brazil’s longhaul fleet consists of 767s, A350s, and 777s, so it’s my guess that the route will likely be operated by a 767, since it’s a new route and they’ll want the plan to have the smallest capacity possible.
In terms of other routes out of Boston Logan to South and Central America, Avianca flies from Boston to Bogota and Copa flies to Panama City.
Congrats to Boston Logan on the new route. Boston has been one of the hottest airports in the country lately in terms of new routes, and this is just their latest win.
(Tip of the hat to Peter)
This site has a ridiculously overwhelming obsession with analysing the population of X around the American airport of a new route when deciding whether they think it will work or not...
It doesn't matter that there are "only" 60,000 foreign born Brazilians in Boston - they aren't the only people taking the flights. US-born Brazilian families, foreign-born South American families, US-born South American families, US tourists and US business people will all be using it....
This site has a ridiculously overwhelming obsession with analysing the population of X around the American airport of a new route when deciding whether they think it will work or not...
It doesn't matter that there are "only" 60,000 foreign born Brazilians in Boston - they aren't the only people taking the flights. US-born Brazilian families, foreign-born South American families, US-born South American families, US tourists and US business people will all be using it. Likewise in reverse, Brazilian tourists, South American tourists, South American business people and people in Brazil with US connections will all be using it.
It's not remotely contingent on the Brazilian-born Boston population!
I’m sure that 60,000 number is too low. A researcher 7 years ago estimated Boston’s Brazilian population to be 336,000.
http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/06/05/brazilians_showcase_their_rise_in_boston/
That Brazilian group west of Boston fly back to Brazil quite often and their relatives visit them in MA. Logan term E is going to get very cramped until the expansion.
"airport has gone from having just a couple of flights to Europe," is quite an understatement. Just from my memory, for decades Boston had >30 nonstops daily to a dozen European cites, including: 6-7 daily flights to/from London AA, BA, VA, DL; Manchester AA; 3X's daily Paris AA, AF; Frankfort LH; Rome AZ, Copenhagen SK, Amsterdam KL; Dublin EI; Shannon Ei; Zurick, SW;
Really great to see Latam expanding its network. I've found them to be a great airline. Flying from Santiago to JFK next month and really looking forward to trying out their 787
Ben, you corrected the screenshot of GC Map, but still used your BOS-EZE mileage calculation. As Adam H says, BOS-GRU is nearly 600 shorter.
Copa also just increased BOS-PTY to 11 weekly beginning February 2018. I wonder if they knew this was coming or is it to play hardball with Avianca since Colombia is/was a big connecting market for them.
BOS-GRU is 4791 miles per Great Circle Mapper a tiny bit longer than BOS-ATH to put things in perspective.
Also -you missed one more Central America flight - JetBlue runs seasonal weekly BOS-LIR. I'm shocked they haven't entered BOS-SJO yet at least seasonally.
niiice, good for us folks who fly to Brazil and back often, altho I'd rather fly AA.
maybe they shouldn't have pre-announced so early without an actual published and bookable schedule. that just opened the flood gates for someone like Avianca Brasil to all of a sudden pre-empt them with the same flight.
Call me a skeptic, but I have very low expectations for the LATAM flight to Sao Paulo, given that Copa flies a 737 from Boston to Panama City and Avianca flies an Airbus 319 from Boston to Bogota.
The routes to Central and South America may be too cost sensitive to get decent quality flights ...
Well with no competition I wonder how much they will charge for this flight. It won’t be cheap.
Wrong destination on map, EZE in stead of GRU.
Sorry about that, folks. Fixed.
The GCMap shows Bos - Buenos Aires rather than Sao Paulo (GRU).
your route map shows BOS - EZE, which is Boston - Buenos Aires. I thought you said the route is going BOS - Sao Paulo, which is BOS - GRU?