The biggest barriers to business growth in the Falkland Islands are the air link to Chile and telecommunications bandwidth (speed and quality) according to the Falkland Islands Development Corporation Business Climate Survey. In the survey to which 106 businesses responded (a 42% response rate) 30.86% selected those options.
The union of cabin workers for LAN Express, a subsidiary of Chile-based LATAM Airlines group, unilaterally said on Thursday that they would revert back to previous working conditions after 17 days of strike that had led to the cancellation of 2,000 flights.
Chile's flag carrier Lan is celebrating this week the seven decades of its first commercial flight between Santiago and Punta Arenas, extreme south of the country, opening the region to closer trade, tourism and investment opportunities. Actually Lan in the thirties and forties, when the company was first starting did in effect make regional flights from Punta Arenas to nearby places mostly on rough landing strips.
Brazilian airline shares soared nearly 30% on Monday after a newspaper report said the government may scrap limits on foreign ownership of domestic airlines to attract investment to the struggling sector. President Dilma Rousseff may propose legislation giving her discretion to let foreign groups own as much as 100% of local airlines, up from 20%, Valor Econômico reported.
An indication of interest has been forthcoming from Chile's flag carrier LAN in relation to bringing in a larger aircraft to cope with the volume of passengers and freight to the Falkland Islands.
Chile's Defense Minister announced the government and workers tied to the civil aviation authority reached an agreement Sunday, ending a four-day strike that forced airlines to cancel hundreds of flights and left thousands of passengers stranded.
Following on Chilean low cost carrier, Sky Airlines, announcement of twelve destinations with cheap flight tickets, including the Santiago/Punta Arenas leg, Lan Chile made a similar presentation on Tuesday of a new set of promotions.
Middle East carriers again outranked US airlines this year in the 2015 Skytrax World Airline Awards. Qatar Airways took the top honor, up from second place in 2014. But the other Gulf airlines from the so-called Middle East Three group, Emirates and Etihad, were not far behind, in fifth and sixth place, respectively.
The scheduled Saturday LAN flight, LA992 departing from Mount Pleasant Airport in the Falkland Islands to Chile with a call in Argentina, was delayed for an hour and a half after a total of fourteen live rounds and 95 empty casings were found in the hold and hand luggage of several passengers.
The Chilean government replied strongly to suggestions from Cristina Fernandez referred to President Sebastian Piñera and his personal fortune saying that in Chile ‘the president and high officials once elected must abide by rules of transparency” and that is why the president voluntarily agreed to sell his stake in LAN airlines before taking office to avoid a conflict of interests.