26 New Air Routes for LAN Argentina

[CHIVILCOY]

Argentina's Ministry for Federal Planning granted 26 new domestic and international routes to LAN Argentina S.A., the recently established Argentine unit of Chile's flagship airline, LAN Airlines S.A. (LFL).
The authorization was published in the Argentine government's bulletin on Thursday.
The new routes include Argentina's domestic destinations and some major international destinations in South America and worldwide, such as New York, Sydney, Madrid, Frankfurt, London and Milan.

[7Q Off]

They have 180 days to start services or loose the route, I dont think they will make it.

[Panama Jack]

Why do you say that 7Q???

I would think with temporary wet leases they can quickly set something up until the rest of everything solidifies?

[7Q Off]

its not legal to wet lease foreign carriers to fly those routes. LAN try it last year to start flying to miami but it was not allowed. They were only allowed to operate miami with aircrafts registered locally. You can wet lease a foreign aircraft just to do charters or some flights but you can not wet lease them to do all the flights.
Here is normal that companies filed for rights they will not use. Is free of charge, so companies just ask for hundred of routes they will never use. Just to have them and be able to five press conferences to use them as free publicity. We are used to this type of anounceses. LAN already has some of those rights but dont used them.

[Panama Jack]

OK I was wondering because I don't know what the legal situation is in Argentina, but in my Central American country of citizenship where there are also very severe restrictions surrounding foreign activities in aeronautics (the employment of foreigners, etc) there are provisions for the very temporary contracting of foreign personnel while nationals are being trained. Seen this a few times-- doesn't last longer than about 6 months or so.

[7Q Off]

that is legal here,but only when no one is rated on that plane. LAN already operates 767 with very experienced argentinean pilots on the type so they will not let them hire foreign pilots, maby 1 or 2 instructors on the type. Here there are lot of pilots with no job.

[Valdiviano]

Is LAN taking over South America?
I recently flew with them Lima, Cusco, Puerto Maldonado, Cusco, then La Paz, Santiago, Auckland, Sydney.
Very impressed with their service, especially their check in/ground service ( no free for all so tipical of south/central america and asia )

[Panama Jack]

It would seem that certain airlines, namely LAN and TACA are indeed "globalizing." Seems like a throw-back to the early days of aviation, when TACA was a collection of airlines in various countries, and Pan Am and TWA had a hand in almost every airline anywhere.

I ask myself when and if LAN will set up a Central American subsiduary to take on TACA and COPA directly. Would get interesting then.

[7Q Off]

Panama, maby in 10 years they will do it, right now they have bigger problems. They first need to be able to make the argentina ops to work. They are loosing more money than expected, they where soposed to start making money this year and last quarter they loose almost 10M USD. They were expecting to be able to fly CC from argentina to miami and future routes, and that is illegal here. As you know, one of the basics about lan, is thay they operate all the aircraft register in chile, and they use all the planes in all the subsidiaries they have in other countries. They rotate the fleet, saving a lot of money. You arrive to miami with a chilean crew and instead of having the aircraft doing nothing in miami, a crew from ecuador get on the aircraft and fly it ecuador and so. That is their secret. To maximise the use of aircraft. But here in argentina is illegal. That means they are having extra costs they weren´t expecting on their buisness. To fly to miami on a daily basis, you need 2 aircraft register in Argentina, but if you fly them all register as CC, you need 1,5 aircraft to do the same job, saving money. Its a very dificult market Argentina, and passengers are dificult to attract. They will make it, but they will probably loose 2 or even 3 times more money they were expecting to loose which means they still have 2 o 3 years until they are profitable.

The second problem is they want to start flying in Brazil in a future. And that is a very dificult market, with lots of restrictions to foreign operatos, the max a foreign investor can have in an airline is 25 percent. The other problem is thay they will need to register the aircraft in Brazil.

Maby they will try colombia in a future, but they have the problem that colombia law dont allow to rotate fleets as LAN want, like argentina and brazil.

[EagleA25]

7Q, Panama

You should not forget that LAN is a holding company, and has MANY subsidiaries. Thos not only include the obvious LAN Chile, LAN Cargo, LAN Peru and LAN Ecuador (Which by the way is NOT member One World, but still flies with the CC- Aircraft that have the Logo One world on them…). The stronghold in LAN is CARGO; it is the 85% of all Profit-makers. So look at the following airlines, that LAN has controlling shares: ABSA (Brazil) MAS AIR (Mexico) and Florida West (US).
LAN is a Monster in S. America. It truly is, and uses its political and economical power to bully itself in and out of the market. In Peru, it holds fifth freedom rights to LAX, JFK, Madrid (which they don’t fly yet) and MIA.
The recent purchase of 25 A320/319’s as well as 12 B767-300ER’s (3x 300ER-F’s for LAN Cargo and FL-W) shows what they are doing.
Good for Argentina that they were not able to “treat” them like they treat the other ones: Second-Grade Employees. The Government of ARG has these laws concerning Wet-Lease for reasons. How many foreign carriers went in, got their money, and got our leaving behind only the rubble? In Peru the same should happen. Instead, since there is a “shortage” of pilots (After advertising job openings, out of 55 applicants, 2 ended up passing…) they invite Chilenian pilots to fly temporarily. Twelve pilots fly here 6 Months flying at a pay 45% higher than the local counter part and not needing to pay taxes… And Peruvians can not do that in Chile!
Well, all the bitching won’t help, but there are MANY internal scandals, more than the world wants to know about LAN… Example, the treatment of LP Flight Attendants: One-World is reviewing the Lan Peru membership, since the membership not only includes the networking and Standards to the PAX’s, no; it includes minimum pay and treatment to its own personnel. It looks like they will loose it...
Let me know what you think about that…

[Panama Jack]

Let me know what you think about that…


Here is what I think . . . I think that is is by far one of the most interesting discussions on this Forum since a very long time.

It will be interesting to watch, even more so regarding LAN Peru and the continued association with OneWorld. A few years ago I saw a poster showing a pilot (with his white shirt and four-bars on the shoulder) being punched with a boxing glove. The poster was published by the OneWorld Cockpit Crew Alliance, protesting conditions at LAN, Cathay Pacific, and Iberia. I guess not has changed.

Many of the comments you make are similar to those that I hear about Grupo TACA, which is another very strong multi-national regional airline with strong political influences. They use "N-registered" aircraft throughout their system and rotate them as need dictates. For better or for worse, I see this becoming more prevalent in the future as more countries demand increased air service, local employment, but are unwilling to foot the bill through the national treasury (in other words, they are unwilling to fund a money-losing government owned-airline). In my opinion while there are some real unpalatable aspects to this, it is preferable to have local pilots meaningfully employed in a airline that isn't a "home-grown" product rather than having to simply depend on American or Continental for international air travel.

Money talks and bull**** walks, even more so in Latin America and in a part of the world not known for labor conditions. One aspect that I believe can bring improvement to the laboral conditions of the Latin American pilot is the availability of attractive contracts abroad-- particularly in Asia. Perhaps airlines will feel the need to compete to keep their human resources?

[7Q Off]

Unions here in Argentina are powerfull, very powerfull. The pilot, FA and Ground Engineers unions are part of the CGT. Thats a sort of Union of the unions. I dont know the english name for that. That CGT has direct influence in the gob. That give them lot of power. As I told you before, they already try to fly to miami with foreign crews. It wasnt allowed.

[Panama Jack]

. . . unions are part of the CGT. Thats a sort of Union of the unions. I dont know the english name for that. That CGT has direct influence in the . . .

I assume CGT is initials for three long words in Spanish. What is the full name in Spanish?

[7Q Off]

Confederacion General del Trabajo, es una federacion de Asociaciones gremiales de distintos tipos, desde empleados de telefonicas, choferes de buses, de camiones de carga, maquinistas de ferrocarril hasta pilotos de aviones. Esa variedad es lo que les provee de poder. :ok:

[Panama Jack]

OK, sounds like a union or sindicato, not unlike The Teamsters in North America who represent workers from all sorts of industries including airline employees.

http://www.teamsters.org/

[7Q Off]

The CGT is similar to the the teamsters. They actual president of CGT was inspired by jimmy hoffa. That is why they are powerfull. And The ALPA in argentina, is part of that. The same about the GE, and FA unions.

[camprax]

what nationalities are LAN hiring do you have to be from the country which they areflying out of? E.g lan chile..you have to be a chilean?
regards

[7Q Off]

depends of the country LAW.
In Argentina you need to be citizen
In Chile they hire foreigns.
In Peru and Ecuador you need to be citizen
They used to hire foreigns in LAN Dominicana 3 or 4 years ago to fly in the hole LAN fleet, but I dont know now or if LAN Dominicana still exists.

[broadreach]

It will be interesting to see how this develops. An equally ambitious Chilean company, CSAV, has managed to become a global force in maritime transport, taking shareholdings in Brazilian and Uruguayan shipping companies but not (yet) in Argentina where, in fact, they don't need to because, for trade between most of the South American countries, they're covered by the Chilean, Uruguayan and Brazilian flags.

Lan seem to have established themselves as a conscientious, quality operator and I wish them every success.

[Airgus]

Anyone knows the req for Bus or Boeing F/O?

Is JAA ATPL or Frozen ATPL allowed in South America?

Graci

[BOEINGJUNKY]

Hello Everyone,
It's no secret that LAN, "the company" is very productive. The other side of the coin is how it treats its employee's.
I just wanted to pass along some facts about what it is like working for LAN PERU...
I, myself am not an employee but these are true facts gathered from very close friends of mine who are currently working as captains, first officers and flight attendants for LAN PERU. Some of them are on the B767 and some on the Airbus.
They tell me that their schedules, specially pilots on the Airbus and all flight attendants, are extremely tough. They fly 6 days on and one day off...NONSTOP !!! Do the math...how many days off does that give you a month ? Its impossible to maintain a family life. They all complain to the company with no response because their schedules are just published because the Ministry of Transportation requires them to be published. In reality the company frequently changes those schedules at their convenience with no regard to the quality of life of the employee. The employee pretty much cannot schedule a family trip with the family because the schedule could change a day prior. They very often get very early wakeups/showtimes in the morning. The flight attendants say sometimes they get 4,5, or even 6 days in a row waking up at 3am-4am. They are EXHAUSTED !!! They say that for days off....they do not bid for a schedule, a scheduler does them and that the friends of the scheduler get the good trips and the others get the bad ones. This goes for Christmas, New Years etc etc... They said somethimes the company will "massage" the actual times on the crew log to make it look legal when they actally went illegal for one reason or another. There has been several instances where some flight attendants knew they were illegal but they knew that if they got off the airplane like they should have, they would be fired or at least put on a "black list."
The pilots on the bus frequently get these wakeups as well and complain of fatigue. The duty times are ridiculously long. They sometimes get home late at night and have to fly early the next day.
On the B767, the problem is that they are away from their base too many days a month. Also making it very hard to maintain a family life. They not always upgrade pilots to captain from within the FO's. Sometimes they hire from the street straight to captain unfairly bypassing the FO already in the company several years...
By the way they are on a salary so the company wants to fly everyone to the max with no possibility of making overtime pay !!!
The company ir run from Santiago,CHILE. Every pilot I know says that the chief pilot and others running the operation in Lima dance to the music played by the higher boss in Santiago. They complain that they want to look good to their bosses in Santiago and DO NOTHING for them in Lima.
They recently formed a union because they simply could not stand it anymore. It seems that they are somewhat stopping a little the exploitation, or at least slowing it down a bit.
Oh, yeah....in terms of salary, its depressing...a Boeing 767-300ER widebody international captain flying a full month makes about 3800 USD a month. Its sad !!! Yes, I understand that some other companies pay less but this is the top salary in the biggest airplane in Lima on a company that calls its self the "Lufthansa of South America." Ja...when in reality it is a workplace that exploits ther employees to the limit and pays them peanuts. You don't even want to know what a FO makes. Let alone what a flight attendant makes... two of my friends are FO on the 767. They have to live with their parents because they cannot affort living alone. Is this what the life of an airline pilot should be like ???
No wonder many flight attendants from LAN are leaving now that TACA PERU is hiring flight attendants. One of the LAN PERU flight attendants said that being a FA for LAN is just a temporary thing...NOBODY CAN STAND THAT KIND OF ABUSE FOR TOO LONG !!!
The company recently did a survey among he employees and the results were obvious...EMPLOYEE DISSATISFACTION ON ALL LEVEL !!!
PS: Please keep in ming that these are the opinions/comments of actual employees and not my own.
If I know more I will let you know.

[7Q Off]

airgus:
in argentina you need to be Argentinean citizen to fly for an argentinean company. You can validate your JAR ATPL, but if you are not citizen, game over.

Boeing Junky, in argentina they still have union problems. In the last 2 months they loose 20 pilots. Some A320 captains, that now fly for Aerolineas Argentina for little more than half the salary. They also loose 5 or 10 more pilots before that are now flying in africa. The working conditions there are not the best. Maby they will improve because Aerolineas Argentinas is recruiting about 120 pilots for the next year, all less than 40 years old, and they will have problems recruiting qualified guys science all pilots here prefer Aerolineas Argentinas as their first choice. And here is almost imposible to hire foreign crews, except when you introduce an aircraft type that never operated before. But now the A320 operates for almost 10 months, so no more excuses. They will need to improve their working conditions, or else. :ok:

[7Q Off]

just as a note, some guys from LAN, finished their A320 type rating in santiago de chile and resign just as they arrived to buenos aires to move to Aerolineas Argentinas. And there are more rumors of pilots leaving lan as soon they have 500 hs on type to fly overseas. And is not about money.

[Panama Jack]

I've never understood the Latin American pattern of treating human resources with contempt. Hopefully, the current movement of pilots from Latin American airlines to others will bring about some soul searching in corporate headquarters, not for any humanistic purpose (forget that), but just as a good business practice.