MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

LAN: new corporate image and more expansion

Chile's main air flag carrier presented this week in Santiago its new corporate image, both internationally and domestically, with the trade mark LAN, which will identify and unify all the companies with the Lan prefix, Lan Chile, Lan Peru, Lan Ecuador and Lan Dominicana.

"Unifying and working together will render the best air transport option in Latinamerica, to and from the region; a top class world service safe and efficient in all routes", said Lan's Executive vicepresident Enrique Cueto.

Lan also announced that the corporation will expand international routes 25% and will be incorporating under leasing five to eight new aircrafts in the coming months.

Some of the new routes will have Lima as the hub with flights to Buenos Aires, Caracas, Bogotá, Guayaquil, Mexico City, plus an increase in frequencies Santiago-Miami, Santiago-Los Angeles, Lima-New York, Lima-Madrid and Guayaquil-Madrid.

Mr. Cueto said the new schedules will become effective in the coming six months once all the traffic rights have been obtained.

"The former Lan Peru will significantly expand in the region and overseas. We're going to achieve a network covering almost all cities in the region, and the flights to Europe from Lima, a 25% expansion", highlighted Mr. Cueto who added that new operations will demand an additional eight aircrafts, three of which have been purchased for 100 million US dollars. "This year we should be receiving five to six more units totalling 60 aircraft by the end of 2004".

Mr. Cueto also confirmed that the majority group in Lan will be offering 10% of the company's shares in the stock market.

Lan expects in 2004 to increase its annual turnover by 15% from the 1,64 billion US dollars of 2003. Earnings in the last quarter of 2003 reached 35 million US dollars, 123% over the same period in 2002.

The four Lans (Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Dominicana) transported 5,5 million passengers in 2003 and 424,000 tons of cargo, employing 11,500 people with a fleet of 55 aircrafts.