|
 Brazil's TAM Linhas Aéreas and Lan Chile, both airlines with a clear dominating position in their domestic markets have agreed to formalize a business alliance. The agreement to be implemented in the next three months aims to develop partnerships in routes operated in South America, broadening passengers' options to fly to several destinations.
TAM will expand its flight offer in South America to include a more complete and diversified network for its passengers. In addition, clients of LAN will enjoy the ease of traveling routes operated by TAM with multiple hours and frequency options.
One of the benefits passengers will enjoy with this business alliance is being able to travel with a single ticket from the beginning to the end of the route, in addition to the possibility of using the companies' VIP areas. Another advantage is the accrual of the TAM Fidelity Program and the LANPASS, benefiting passengers who travel frequently.
TAM's CEO, Marco Antonio Bologna said the alliance with LAN represents an important step towards the regional integration process in South America, thus stimulating the distribution of passengers in the Brazilian, Chilean, Argentinean, Peruvian, Venezuelan and other markets.
"TAM and LAN passengers can rely on a wider variety of flights while enjoying all of the advantages of both companies' fidelity programs" said Bologna, who points out that the agreement also reinforces TAM's strategy of maintaining partnerships with leading companies in the markets where it operates.
Enrique Cueto, LAN's vice-chief executive officer, said, "Thanks to this agreement, our passengers will enjoy an excellent network that will make their travels easier. This will encourage commercial agreements already existing between the countries, fomenting tourism and bilateral cooperation in the region."
TAM has been the Brazilian domestic market leader since July 2003, and closed last April with a 50.72% market share. The company flies to 48 destinations throughout Brazil and with commercial agreements executed with regional companies, reaches 75 destinations outside the national territory.
LAN is one of Latin America's leading airlines and is integrated by LAN Airlines, LAN Express, LAN Peru, LAN Ecuador, and LAN Argentina, as well as LAN Cargo and its affiliates.
LAN Alliance serves 15 destinations in Chile, 12 in Peru, 10 in Argentina, two in Ecuador, 15 destinations in other Latin American countries and Caribbean, three in the United States two in Europe and four in the South Pacific, in addition to 52 additional international destinations through several code-share agreements.
Mercopress
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.