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Delta immediately turned the tables on US-Latin America flying by announcing plans to take a 20% stake in LATAM, South America’s largest airline. Delta is pulling them out of oneworld and out of a pending joint venture with American Airlines.
One side benefit that must have been sweet for Delta, though has gone largely unremarked upon, is the extra benefit that comes from sticking it to Qatar Airways. Now Qatar is trolling Delta back.
Yesterday Delta announced an offer to assist passengers stranded by American Airlines as their partnership with LATAM breaks up.
Now Delta has flushed their offer announcement down the memory hole.
After the shocking announcement that Delta will buy 20% of Latin America’s largest airline LATAM while that carrier will leave the oneworld alliance and their joint venture with American is off, strange things started happening.
LATAM’s Chairman gave an interview in Spanish where he dished on when LATAM started talking to Delta, the timeline for shifting their partnerships, and which one’s they’re going to retain — as well as when they broke up with American Airlines.
After the close of markets on Thursday Delta announced they’re acquiring 20% of LATAM. That’s huge for Delta giving them a big presence in Latin America, on top of owning 49% of Aeromexico.
This positions Delta well to grow in American’s back yard of Miami and it undercuts American’s South America flights by denying them connecting feed, and blocks American’s joint venture with LATAM (which would have had to exclude Chile flights). And it really sticks it to the CEO of Qatar Airways given their 10% stake in LATAM.
Delta announced that they’re taking a 20% stake in LATAM, the largest airline conglomerate in South America comprised of LATAM Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Perú.
American Airlines had worked towards a joint venture with LATAM but it was rejected by Chile’s Supreme Court this spring. LATAM will exit the oneworld alliance, although no plans have been announced for their entrance to SkyTeam.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
