MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
LATAM airlines planning a 359 strong fleet by 2014
The company’s passenger traffic in July rose 7.9% Chile's newly merged regional carrier LATAM Airlines said on Monday it would spend 7.87 billion dollars on its fleet through 2014. The airline aims to have a 359-strong fleet by 2014, up from the 319 planes projected for this year.
LAN Airlines completed a takeover of Brazilian rival TAM in June, creating the world's second-largest airline by market value in a deal that executives expect to yield up to 700 million in annual cost savings within four years.
The Latin American carrier reiterated it hopes to regain its investment-grade credit rating within a year. If not, the firm could consider a capital increase in the second half of 2013.
“Going forward, we would see a rapid de-leveraging process of the company, as the new synergies are captured,” Chief Financial Officer Alejandro de la Fuente told analysts on the conference call.
“So going forward, we expect that we regain the investment grade level maybe in a couple of quarters or maybe in one year, but an equity offering hasn't been decided yet.”
Last Friday LATAM said it posted a profit of 49.7 million dollars in the second quarter, boosted by accounting effects of the tie-up and higher sales.
The group also revealed that July passenger traffic rose 7.9% compared with the same period last year. In a statement LATAM said that international passenger traffic accounted for around 49% of July's total passenger traffic. Traffic during the January-July period rose 6.9% from a year earlier.
Domestic passenger traffic in LATAM Airlines' Spanish speaking operations in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia rose 24.7% in July, while domestic passenger traffic in Brazil rose 10.1%.
International passenger traffic, which includes international operations of LAN and TAM on regional and long haul routes, rose 2.6% in July, while LAN's cargo traffic fell 4.5%.
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Read all commentsMonopoly!!!!!
Aug 14th, 2012 - 10:12 am 0greetings from “Chile's newly merged regional carrier LATAM Airlines”
Aug 14th, 2012 - 12:49 pm 0Some wannabe “dutch” dude proven to be wrong about 100 times is gonna spit fire in 3, 2, 1...
xD
This is an amazing story really and it is sad that none of the hard line national socialists will have the grace to recognise the achievements. But put this in context. In Europe and South America, airlines (and other businesses) have long complained that US businesses have a natural advantage because of their access to the massive internal US market – which is true and is why Mercosur want to replicate a SA equivalent of that internal market.
Aug 14th, 2012 - 02:58 pm 0But here in Chile we have ploughed our own furrow. We haven’t looked to be part of something bigger, we have worked hard to beat them at their game. (We work more hours in the day than any country except Singapur – I think that would drop if you discounted the 2 daily visits to the “cafe con piernas” ).
In our four main industries: mining, forestry, fish farming and viticulture our domestic businesses have grown to be as big (and sometimes bigger) than their US/European rivals. Now our little LAN, already operating the best domestic routes in Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, has swallowed up TAM and become the second largest airline in the world. As SA grows at 4% LAN will only grow, and unlike US, European and Argie flag carriers it doesn’t require tax payer monies to be pumped in to it.
There are tough decisions to be made now re secondary education and reducing inequality, but I know, like so much else, we can do it right – our way.
A quien madruga Dios le ayuda.
¡Viva Chile mierda!
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