LATAM Airlines

LATAM Airlines Chile, formerly known as LAN Chile and LAN Airlines, is a Chilean multinational airline based in Santiago and one of the founding companies of the LATAM Airlines Group, the largest airline holding company in Latin America. Its main hubs are in the Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in Santiago, Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo and Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima, with secondary hubs in Bogotá, Quito, Guayaquil and Asunción.
LAN was the flag carrier of Chile until its privatization in the 1990s; it is the predominant airline in Chile, Ecuador, and Peru, the largest carrier in Brazil, and the second-largest in Colombia, through its local subsidiaries. LATAM is the largest airline in Latin America, serving Latin America, North America, the Caribbean, Oceania, Asia, and Europe. The carrier was a member of the Oneworld airline alliance from 2000 until 2020.
LATAM Airlines Group was formed after the takeover by LAN of Brazilian airline TAM Linhas Aéreas, which was completed on June 22, 2012. In August 2015, it was announced that both airlines would rebrand as LATAM, with one livery to be applied on all aircraft by 2018. Currently, LATAM Chile and LATAM Brasil continue to work as separate companies, under LATAM Airlines Group acting as the parent company. LATAM Airlines Group is currently the largest airline corporation in Latin America.
The airline was founded by Chilean Air Force Commodore Arturo Merino Benítez (after whom Santiago International Airport is named), and began operations on March 5, 1929, as Línea Aeropostal Santiago-Arica (English: Postal Air Line Santiago-Arica), under the government of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. In 1932 It was rebranded as Línea Aérea Nacional de Chile (English: National Air Line of Chile), using the acronym LAN Chile as its commercial name. LAN Chile's first fleet consisted of de Havilland Moth planes.
Merino Benitez was a strong defender of Chilean carriers' exclusivity on domestic routes, differing from most Latin American countries which easily granted authorization on domestic flights to US-based Panagra, influenced by the propaganda made by Charles Lindbergh's Atlantic crossing. Also because of this reason, US-built airplanes became more difficult to incorporate to LAN's fleet until the beginning of WWII. In 1936, 2 French Potez 560 airplanes were purchased while in 1938, 4 German Junkers Ju 86Bs were incorporated into the fleet. During that same year, a cooperation agreement was established with Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano and the Peruvian carrier Faucett. Another agreement with Lufthansa was signed for flights to and from Europe and America's Atlantic coast.
In 1940, given the restrictions imposed during WWII on access to spare parts for the Junker's BMW engines, LAN Chile had to replace them with Lockheed Model 10A Electras, adding in 1941 further Lockheed Lodestar C-60 and Douglas DC-3 in 1945.
On August 23, 1945, LAN Chile became a member of the newly formed IATA. In October 1946, it started international service to Buenos Aires at Morón Airport and in 1947 to Punta Arenas, Chile's most distant continental destination.
In December 1954, LAN Chile made its first commercial flight to Lima, Perú. On December 22, 1956, a LAN Chile Douglas DC-6B made the world's first commercial flight over Antarctica. Since then, all of LAN's DC-6 fleet had painted on their fuselage Primeros sobre la Antártica ("The first over Antarctica"), using this same aircraft type for its first commercial service to Miami International Airport in 1958.
LAN Chile entered the jet era in 1963, purchasing three French Sud Aviation Caravelle VI-R, which initially flew to Miami, Guayaquil, Lima, Panama City and within Chile to Punta Arenas, Puerto Montt and Antofagasta.
In 1966, LAN Chile purchased its first Boeing 707 from Lufthansa, in exchange for flying rights in the Lima-Santiago route. With this aircraft model, the company developed new long-haul routes to the US, Oceania, and Europe. LAN-Chile started on April 15, 1967, the route Santiago-John F. Kennedy International Airport and Santiago-Easter Island on April 8. In October 1967 a LAN Chile Sud Aviation Caravelle made the first ILS landing in South America at Lima's Jorge Chávez International Airport. On January 16, 1968, the Santiago-Easter Island flight was extended to Papeete-Faa'a International Airport, in Tahiti, French Polynesia using a Douglas DC-6B. The airline then introduced Boeing 707 jet service on the Santiago – Easter Island –Papeete, Tahiti route in April 1970. On September 4, 1974, this route was extended to Fiji.
In 1969, LAN Chile expanded its destinations to Rio de Janeiro, Asunción and Cali with new Boeing 727s. In 1970, with Boeing 707s, LAN Chile opened its first transatlantic routes to Madrid–Barajas Airport, Frankfurt Airport and Paris-Orly.
Since its inception and until 1970, the airline had its headquarters, main hub, and maintenance center at Los Cerrillos Airport, in southwest Santiago. The restrictions imposed by the growing metropolitan area of Santiago and the need for modern, jet-era airport facilities that could safely accommodate both domestic and intercontinental flights, drove the need to relocate the Chilean capital's principal airport from Los Cerrillos to the denser southwest metropolitan region of Santiago to the more rural northwest metropolitan area. For this reason, Santiago International Airport in Pudahuel was built between 1961 and 1967, fully moving LAN Chile's flights to this new airport in 1970.
On February 10, 1974, a LAN-Chile Boeing 707 flown by captain Jorge Jarpa Reyes made the world's first transpolar non-stop flight between South America (Punta Arenas Airport) and Australia (Sydney Kingsford-Smith Airport).
In 1980, the company replaced its Boeing 727s with the Boeing 737-200 on its domestic routes. Also, McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30s, LAN Chile's first wide-body jets, were added for use on routes to Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. That same year, the maintenance facilities were relocated from Los Cerrillos to Arturo Merino Benítez Airport.
In 1985, LAN-Chile implemented a program of flights around the world called Cruceros del Aire ("Air Cruises"), pioneers and unique in Latin America. The initial version included two flights per year (April 26 and September 26) on a Boeing 707 named Three Oceans because it crossed the Atlantic, Indian and South Pacific oceans, visiting 18 different places. The aircraft was specially prepared for these flights. It had 80 seats in first class, thus providing passengers with ample room for their comfort. Eighty tourists were selected for a 31-day tour that included visits to the main cities of Africa, Asia and Oceania. Such flights were made until 1989, marketed according to their route under various names such as "Around the World", "Three Oceans", "Three Continents", "Mediterranean","East-West China", etc.
In June 1986, Boeing 767-200ERs replaced the DC-10 fleet, with a new route to Montréal–Mirabel International Airport.
In 1988, LAN Chile started construction of its maintenance center at Santiago Airport and added a Boeing 747-100 on lease from Aer Lingus to its fleet during the summer season for its US flights.
In September 1989, the Chilean government privatized the carrier, selling a majority stake in the company to Icarosan and Scandinavian Airlines (49%), which subsequently sold its stake a few years later to local investors. Since 1994, major shareholders have been the Cueto Family and businessman Sebastián Piñera (until 2010), who sold his shares when taking office as President of the Republic of Chile.
The approval from the Chilean Anti-Trust Authority resulted in the acquisition of the country's second-largest airline Ladeco on August 11, 1995. In October 1998, LAN-Chile merged its cargo subsidiary Fast Air Carrier with Ladeco, forming LAN Express.
In 1998, LAN established a joint venture with Lufthansa called LLTT (Lufthansa-LAN Technical Training S.A.) with the aim of satisfying the needs for aircraft maintenance training in Latin America. LLTT was based at LAN's hangars in Arturo Merino Benítez Airport. LLTT was the only A320 Maintenance Simulator (CMOS) training provider in Latin America.
In 2000, LAN Cargo opened up a major operations base at Miami International Airport and currently operates one of its largest cargo facilities there.
In 2002, LAN Chile started its internationalization process through LAN Perú and LAN Ecuador.
In March 2004, LAN-Chile and its subsidiaries, LAN Perú, LAN Ecuador, LAN Dominicana and LAN Express, became unified under the unique LAN brand and livery, eliminating each airline country name on the brands. On June 17, 2004, LAN-Chile changed its formal name to LAN Airlines (which was said to mean Latin American Network Airlines, even though the airline says LAN is no longer an acronym) as part of this re-branding and internationalization process; although, when founded in 1929, LAN originally meant "Línea Aérea Nacional" (National Airline).
In March 2005, LAN opened its subsidiary LAN Argentina in Argentina and operates national and international flights from Buenos Aires, and is the third-largest local operator behind Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral. This subsidiary is also under the LAN brand.
As of August 1, 2006, LAN merged first and business classes of service into a single class, named Premium Business.
On October 28, 2010, LAN acquired 98% of the shares of AIRES, the second-largest air carrier in Colombia. On December 3, 2011, AIRES started operating as LAN Colombia under the unified LAN livery.
Since May 5, 2016, LAN has been operating as LATAM Airlines. The airline opened many routes during 2017, one of them being the longest flight in their history: Santiago to Melbourne, which started operating October 5 of that year.
On August 13, 2010, LAN Airlines signed a non-binding agreement with Brazilian Airline TAM Linhas Aéreas for the purchase of LAN from TAM Linhas Aéreas to form the LATAM Airlines Group. The purchase was completed on June 22, 2012. The Brazilian Administrative Council for Economic Defense ("CADE") and the Court for the Defense of Free Competition ("TDLC") approved the purchase subject to mitigation measures. The airlines have to relinquish four daily slot pairs from São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport to other airlines willing to fly the Santiago-São Paulo route, waive membership in Star Alliance (of which TAM Linhas Aéreas was a member) or Oneworld, and interline agreements with other airlines operating selected routes, among other provisions. It still continued to use its "LAN CHILE" call sign, as well as its post-merger IATA and ICAO identities for its LATAM-operated flights.
During the first half of 2018, the airline experienced problems due to the Rolls-Royce engines on its Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet, having grounded at least six of them since February 2018. In April 2018, its domestic subsidiary LATAM Express suffered a major workers' strike. This caused several economic losses for the airline. Later that year they began to recover from this and were expected to resume 787 deliveries for 2019, which resumed with CC-BGO in November of that year.
The airline has its headquarters on the 20th floor of the 5711 Avenida Presidente Riesco Building in Las Condes, Santiago Province. Previously its headquarters were in Estado 10 in downtown Santiago de Chile.
LATAM flies to 30 international destinations in 16 countries along with 17 domestic destinations in Chile. LATAM Chile was a popular choice for surfers traveling to South America because of their policy of not charging extra baggage fees. However, starting on December 19, 2016, they changed their policy and now charge US$200 per way for a surfboard bag of up to three boards.
On October 5, 2017, LATAM inaugurated their direct route between Santiago and Melbourne, a 15-hour (westbound) and 11,300 kilometres (6,100 nmi) flight. It is currently the southernmost commercial point-to-point flight. The flight's great circle passes south of the Antarctic Circle, at a distance of about 800 km from the Antarctic mainland.
In November 2017, the company announced the opening of a direct air route to Asia. The route operated with a flight departing from Santiago, Chile with a stop in São Paulo, Brazil, and from there it proceeded directly to Tel Aviv, Israel. The flights were operated three times a week starting from December 2018 until 2020, using the company's Boeing 787. This was the second air route operated by a South American company from South America to Asia.
LATAM codeshares with the following airlines:
As of February 2025, LATAM operates the following aircraft:
LAN was the launch customer for the Pratt & Whitney PW6000 engine on the Airbus A318. Its Airbus A319s and Airbus A320s are equipped with the IAE V2500s or CFM56s engines. LATAM overhauled its Boeing 767s, adding amenities like flatbed seats in Premium Business class, which offers 180 degrees of recline, and new touchscreen personal TVs with on-demand content.
In May 2008, LAN Chile retired its last 737 from service and was replaced by the Airbus A320s. In addition to its A320 family aircraft and Boeing 767, LATAM purchased the Boeing 787 for its long-haul routes to Auckland, Sydney, and selected European routes, replacing its Airbus A340-300s that left the fleet in April 2015. In 2011, LAN Chile ordered 10 A318s but sold them to Avianca Brasil, in order to purchase another 128 jets from the A320 family and one more A340-300. That year the airline placed orders for more Airbus A320 and brand new Airbus A321 aircraft. LATAM Chile is the American launch customer for the Sharklets for its A320 fleet.
In 2012, LAN Chile became the launch customer in the Americas of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. On November 23, 2014, the airline received their first Airbus A321. This has been the domestic flagship of the airline ever since. On April 17, 2015, the airline officially retired the Airbus A340-300 from their fleet, the last one being CC-CQA. In December 2017 the airline received their first Airbus A320neo. However, months later these were grounded due to an issue with the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G engines. LATAM faced many problems caused by both groundings of the A320neo and Boeing 787 aircraft in 2018. Later that year, they started recovering from that.
In 2021, LATAM acquired four Boeing 787-9 aircraft that used to fly for Norwegian Air Shuttle, which entered service in late 2022.
LATAM has formerly operated the following aircraft;
LATAM Pass is the airline's frequent flyer program to reward customer loyalty. There are currently over four million members. Members earn miles every time they fly with LATAM Chile, an affiliated airline, or by using the services of any LATAM Pass-associated business around the world.
The LATAM Pass program has five membership categories:
On May 5, 2016, LANPass was rebranded as LATAM Pass, once LAN Chile fully transitioned into LATAM Chile.
LATAM Airlines operates lounges at the following airports:
These lounges are accessible for passengers traveling in Premium Business, Business, and Premium Economy, as well as selected members of the LATAM Pass program who are Black or Platinum members.
The newly renovated LATAM lounges were designed by Chilean architects Mathias Klotz and Olivia Putman.