Aerolineas Argentinas has cumulatively lost $8 billion in taxpayer money since it was renationalized in 2008.
And Argentina can’t afford to go deeper. The country’s annual inflation rate was 211.4% last year. They had negative 5% GDP growth. Just 5% of people lived in poverty in Argentina ten years ago, now 40% do.
Buenos Aires
This is a country that saw its peak a century ago and has largely been in decline under authoritarian leaders since then. American Airlines stopped accepting cash in the country at the end of the year.
Here's how it looks to pay for a group dinner (and not a particularly expensive one, at that!)
Paying the bill is a whole event! First the guest counts out the bills into piles of 10,000 pesos, then the waiter recounts to make sure it's right pic.twitter.com/9g2RFWNj5M
— Devon ☀️ (@devonzuegel) December 28, 2023
President Javier Milei wants them off the government dole, and they’re working on reforms though the unions are fighting this.
Aerolineas Argentinas Crew
Against this backdrop the airline is expected to announce the end of New York service effective August 10th, rebooking passengers that already have tickets onto other carriers or onto their Miami flight. They’ve already dropped Buenos Aires – Havana.
The flag carrier’s plan is to prioritize the most profitable flights and increase fleet productivity . In this context, the modification would allow the offer to Miami and Madrid to be increased to two daily flights, in addition to adding resources to increase flights to the Caribbean.
Buenos Aires
Aerolineas Argentinas has also “launched a voluntary retirement plan for all ground staff, both operational and administrative, which is equivalent to about 8,000 employees out of a total workforce of almost 12,000 people.”
(HT: GJ)
I suspect Delta saw this coming which is why they are now flying JFK-EZE all but for a few months in the peak summer and the route will undoubtedly now become year round.
AR also had a strange daytime southbound schedule that undoubtedly didn’t garner great revenue
notably, UA has not tried to add EWR-EZE service. also, UA has just cancelled their investor day.
The government of Argentina is killing the country!
@RunningJock: The Peroinists were. The current President is turning it around. After only three months inflation and other data are vastly improved. And, unlike the Biden regime, the country now runs a fiscal surplus.
What a surprise.
Article about AR
Tim Dunn: “Delta was prescient”
Dude, get a life.
Delta, the most premium airline in the southeastern US, needs to be experienced to be believed. No other airlines come close and if you’re flying to Argentina you must consider that Delta has their own oil refinery. Your trip to Argentina just won’t be the same unless you connect through Atlanta.
Well done, Milei. A rare politician who does what he says he was going to do.
So be done with it. Not the first airline to ever go away. hard on the employees.
The only person that needs to get a life is MAX.
Any remotely competent follower of the airline industry looks at route changes based on the competitive situation.
You do realize, Max, (never mind, it doesn’t change anything) that the AR flight carries a DL code and AR is part of Skyteam?
You CAN’T STAND that someone besides you understands the industry and gets it right while you flounder for significance.
Tim
Keep some self respect and stop embarrassing yourself.
Article is about AR. Your nonsense in every post is about how great delta is
Grow up. Unlike you, I’ve never claimed to be god’s gift to the aviation industry. Lots of people know more about the aviation industry than me. You may but you’re too ridiculously clouded by a childish delta obsession to use any knowledge for a productive purposes whatsoever.
But then again, I also haven’t been fired by delta or banned multiple times by many aviation websites.
For someone that gets all bent out of shape about how often I post, you replied 18 MINUTES after I posted my reply. [redacted -gl]
You simply can’t stand to hear anyone talk about Delta and are completely INCAPABLE of accepting that DL has served JFK-EZE ALONGSIDE AR. AR is part of SkyTeam. DL has every reason to have an interest in AR’s departure and ensure that SkyTeam is well-represented in this market which will become year round.
And the real significance, since it gets you all bent out of shape, is that DL has overtaken AA as the largest carrier in the NYC-Latin America market as a result of DL’s growing presence in S. America, its JV with Latam, and its presence – along w/ UA – in major ethnic markets such as SDQ and STI which AA walked away from years ago.
And UA may not be in a position to start EWR-EZE if it wanted to with a shortage of aircraft and the FAA breathing down its neck. When a company says it can’t talk to investors because the FAA is on its back, the impact on UA is way more than alot of people were willing to admit but I said all along was highly significant.
You simply do not understand the airline industry and can’t stand that someone else does and talks about what is relevant.
The onlyone than needs to walk away is you.
You contribute absolutely and simply prove what an immature child you are.
GET LOST.
Not the first time AR has axed its JFK service, but frankly, none of this is surprising, given Argentina’s economic problems. Further, AR has a terrible schedule on the JFK-EZE leg, with mid-afternoon departures and arrivals around 4:30am. The NY-Buenos Aires market belongs to American. With AR in SkyTeam, it also makes sense for DL to operate the route over AR, as there are more connection opportunities on the NY end, and all under one roof (AR operates from Terminal 7). AA is also going double daily for peak Southern Hemisphere summer in 2024-2025, building on the 10 weekly it was operating this year. The market is not small, but it is not big enough for 3 players, and it is entirely unsurprising to see AR, which likely has most of its point of sale originating in Argentina, drop out.
@Tim Dunn, UA has operated EWR-EZE in the past, twice. From 2011 to 2013 and again from 2017 to 2018. And long before the merger, in the years of UA’s international long haul built out, it flew from JFK to EZE, then moved the route to IAD. Anyway, DL may have more capacity to Latin America from the NY area over AA, but the real question is how much is DL capturing on both ends of the market, when it comes to point of sale. AA has quite the Latin America network, and it carries tons of cargo too. Even with LATAM, DL has a long way to go.
Also, “ethnic” markets referring to SDQ and STI? Really?
It would be nice to read an article without having comments tied to Delta, somehow.
“Sick puppy”… where have I heard that before? Tim, showing his MAGA colors.
shoe,
the free market is not build upon “that is company X’s domain so nobody else dare come near” but rather that company X will maintain its position in the market if they are who customers choose the most.
As hard as it is for some to accept, DL invested in Latam with the intention to grow its presence in Latin America. DL and UA fly the major ethnic markets in the Caribbean, UA has a few more to Central America, and DL is pulling equal to AA to S. America. DL and LA compliment each other well.
And, if you have bothered to look recently, LA, not AA, has the most seats in a number of markets from MIA to S. America.
EZE is a rare exception.
It shouldn’t be too hard to see that DL intends to go after Argentina because it is not part of the DL-LA JV.
DL was waiting for an opening, AR stumbled which wasn’t a surprise, and JFK-EZE will move from being an AR market to a DL market… and it will be springboard for MIA-EZE
Ms. Mocker and LowPower don’t want to hear it but AA was the only show in town in NYC just 20 years ago – but DL saw opportunity and pounced.
same song, 33rd verse.
Tim Dunn- if the best part of you didn’t run down your mothers leg then I just don’t know where it went. You do know how quickly you wear out your welcome on these travel sites, don’t you? You are like an annoying little puppy dog nipping at everyone’s heels for just a little bit of attention. No one cares what you think or how deep your knowledge base is. The fact is your repetitive posts are annoying, Redundant and just plain boring. No one cares. Really. If there is someone on this site who cares what little Timmy has to say then make yourself known. And prove me wrong.
Obviously, Delta is the world’s only PERFECT airline – at least according to one person who regularly posts here.
Tim Dunn,
You MAGA chainsmokers don’t know the first thing about the “free market” and you couldn’t possibly, given your unrelenting efforts to curb the rights of others.
the derangement syndrome is palpable.
“Sick puppy” is hardly trademarked by one side or the other.
And as much as anybody wants to deny it, AR was in bad shape, isn’t a terribly great SkyTeam partner and has been talking about realigning along w/ other Latin America airlines, and DL saw an opportunity to grow its presence in EZE and JFK, and the two coincided.
the forever losers will continue to engage in personal attacks because they can’t accept the reality that I highlight.
Back during part of the GW Bush Admin years, more than 5% of Argentines were living in poverty. Sadly, Argentina has a multi-decades pattern of boom and bust with waves of accompanying poverty increases.
UA used to have JFK-EZE service even while AA did too. Wouldn’t surprise me if AR had service on the route for some of the same period when UA and AA both had JFK-EZE running. DL more or less eventually picked up a lot of what UA and/or AA got rid of at JFK.
GU,
that is correct.
the point is that there are opportunities for expansion without direct head-on competition.
For whatever reason, UA dropped EWR-EZE and DL, which tried JFK-EZE years ago only to have AA immediately go to double daily and then drop back to single daily after DL pulled the route, backed off until it saw an opportunity.
As a member of SkyTeam, although weak, AR did help fill a small hole in DL’s JFK network. Last year, DL saw the opportunity to add its own JFK-EZE flight on a seasonal basis, DL JFK-EZE has been extended several times, and is not currently scheduled for about 5 months but set to return with the IATA winter season.
The real question will be if DL moves the restart to minimize the gap between the end of AR service and if UA decides to jump in the EWR-EZE market again.
If, as some have suggested, NYC-EZE is too small for 3 players, then UA might have a much tougher chance restarting. Since AA and DL are both flying JFK-GIG at least winter seasonally, UA is already in a weaker position from NYC to S. America than AA and DL.
Given that UA has cancelled its investor day specifically noting the FAA safety audit, which really means that UA’s growth plan has been shredded first by Boeing and now by the FAA’s threats of limiting UA growth, the question is whether UA will try to jump back into the market.
It is sad to see what is happening to Argentina but it was years in the making. The real story is what happens on the US carrier side because of AR’s decision.
Given that Argentina is not part of the DL-LA JV and NYC-EZE is one of the few large NYC to S. America markets that DL and/or LA did not serve, it is not a surprise that DL is likely to convert this route to year round.
and given that MIA-EZE is one of the few major routes to S. America that LA does not serve, the longer term question is how long it will be before DL starts MIA-EZE
GUWonder,
United began flying from JFK to EZE and GRU after it acquired much of Pan Am’s Latin America network post-Pan Am’s final chapter. It ran those flights until the late 1990s or early 2000s and then moved them to IAD. Post merger with CO, UA moved EZE back to the NY Area and out of IAD, flying it from EWR, from 2011 to 2013. Then resumed it in 2017 for about a year, then dropped it again.
Promise me that team of FAs and I’ll give them my business. Haven’t seen a team that looked that nice on any American airline in many, many years!
Argentinean here. First off, no… Argentina did not have a 5% poverty rate 10 years ago. The government back then was lying with both inflation and poverty rates. Second, in a country where 60% of kids are poor (the new government doesn’t lie) it’s a tragedy to have a national airline losing taxpayers money. This is a good decision
in other significant route news, UA has cancelled the launch of its EWR-FAO (Faro Portugal) and NRT-Cebu routes just weeks before they were supposed to start.
It appears the FAA is a whole lot more serious about slowing down UA’s growth than many have believed.
@Tim Dunn
Regardless of any opinion you have you made a point of attacking United in every single comment here on a post that really had nothing to do with them. This is suspicious in itself, despite the millions of hours you dedicate to propping up Delta endlessly. I personally feel that you are walking a thin line and if any other airline discovers that you are in any way connected to Delta monetarily you could really have issues going forward. I would start to be more careful. It’s one thing to be a fan boy. It’s another when you start attacking other airlines with no relevance to anything being discussed here so as to gain potential financial gain. And has Matthew discovered in his post for LALF you are clearly connected somehow financially given your investor blog posts you have done in the past, maybe not directly yourself, but through a connected entity. You are fooling no one.
Be more careful. You are starting to come across as unhinged with your greed for whatever it is you are after.
Shoeguy,
I used to fly UA JFK-EZE a lot during at least part of the early 2000s. I would alternate between AA and UA on the JFK-EZE route and also on MIA-EZE when doing the US-EZE route at least 1-3 times per month as a DCA- and NYC-based flyer. That was an era where EZE had a lot of Argentina-based AA and UA elites for whom MIA and NYC was the destination or main gateway but DL barely had any elites down there.
It was US-EZE in large part that gave me my first million miles with airline status — and also with sizable contributions from a lot of US-Europe and US-Europe-India runs — during the early 2000s.
stuart,
I do not participate in or even read LALF.
You might focus on those that use my name because they can’t deal w/ the facts I present on the sites I do participate in.
The discussion here is relevant to the players in the NYC and AR markets.
AR has been weak for years. Even though they were part of SkyTeam, they were a carrier that DL probably would have been happy to replace.
DL tried to start JFK-EZE before and AA doubled their flights. DL tried again last year, has slowly extended the route to operate for more than half of the year, and is certain to make the route year round. DL with GIG and EZE and all of the ethnic Caribbean markets is now the largest airline from NYC (and LAX) to Latin America alongside Latam.
I do not know why UA pulled out of EWR-EZE but I am betting they become the 3rd wheel that someone suggests can’t make it.
There seems to be fire to the smoke that UA’s MCO union leaders saw and the FAA is serious about limiting UA’s growth; airlines don’t just decide to cancel or push back inaugurals on two routes they have heavily touted. Even if the FAA is not behind it, UA didn’t just wake up one morning and realize that all of the growth they were attempting was not possible; Boeing has been pushing back aircraft delivery dates for years.
NYC-EZE is a significant market. The story is less about AR’s withdrawal as how it shakes out among the big 3.
as for DL, they are expected to be the only profitable US airline at least of the big 4 this quarterly and a top pick by multiple groups of industry followers.
a few more thoughts, stuart.
I just had a look over at LALF and find that many of the stories and comments are the same as covered here and on other sites I frequent. I am not missing anything.
The real issue in your comment was expressed by someone that does participate in this site and another one I also participate in. that person said that I and others should be “in awe” for what UA has done over the past year even regarding its financial performance. And yet when I went back and doublechecked, UAL has not outperformed its pre-covid financial performance and has also not surpassed DL which was then and still is the most profitable US airline.
The details of that conversation don’t matter.
What does matter is that there are United fans – and maybe its senior execs – that think that anyone that says anything negative about UA is the same person while everyone should be swooning when they see what UA is doing.
I wrote on an other site 18 months ago that UA would miss its growth plan and its stock would suffer. Stock is hardly the only metric of an airline or any business’ performance but DL and UA stock performed very well together – better than the industry – for a period of time.
UA’s stock has been underperforming DL’s for months.
As hard as it is for some to admit, some of us saw this years ago as a result of following the airline industry for decades including watching Scott Kirby and the team he took from AA to UA. UA’s growth plan was ego-driven, unrealistic and unsustainable. Their operation has been problematic, the FAA has noticed, and there are people inside of UA that have been highly critical of UA. Much of that criticism was deserved. It has taken the last couple months for some people to finally admit that not everything that UA tries to argue is really outside of UA’s control.
specific to this discussion, let’s see what UA does with NYC-EZE but Latin America as a whole. Add in the possibility that UA could be forced to drop other high-profile competitive route launches and the industry could look very differently very quickly.
AA has been the leader in Latin America since the Eastern asset acquisition. DL has been 3rd fiddle. DL’s Latam equity and JV was industry-changing and was bound to impact other players including UA. Argentina is not part of the JV so DL will have to grow in Argentina on its own metal. Latam is already larger than AA by seats in a number of S. America markets. Other than AR, SkyTeam does not serve MIA to most S. America markets; LA is not part of SkyTeam but is part of the DL-LA JV.
well-established status quos are changing. NYC–EZE is just one tip of the iceberg.
Tim
You’re an idiot. You’d have to be stupid to not see the united turnaround in profits
But, as usual, you do love to lie then find some random thing to fixate on to try to mitigate your obvious lies like delta growth 2023 growth
Keep ignoring reality
It’s your call sign
minibrain,
UAL earned less in 2023 than they did in 2019. There is no turnaround.
I am not in awe of deteriorating performance.
You clearly have bought into the UA cult mindset of their greatness.
WRT this article, UA is likely to sit on the sidelines as AA and DL be the 2 US airlines that fly NYC-EZE.
“This is a country that saw its peak a century ago and has largely been in decline under authoritarian leaders since then.”
Um, just … no. Argentina has been a democracy since 1983, and while it suffered several periods of dictatorship during the 20th century, your comment above shows a complete ignorance of history.