Chile’s LATAM Airlines Group has pledged to invest $2 billion in Brazil in the next two years, focusing on “products, technologies and services for passengers as well as aeronautical maintenance activities”.
The Santiago-based company said on 5 August that it signed a “protocol of intention” after executives met with Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the Chilean capital.
“The agreement signed in Santiago contemplates a joint technical work plan between LATAM Airlines Brasil and the Brazilian ministry of labour and employment to explore employment opportunities, training and employment of specialized labour in Brazil in the coming months,” the company says.
LATAM employs 19,000 people in Brazil, of which 1,800 are at the airline’s maintenance base in San Carlos, the largest such MRO base in Latin America. More than half of the LATAM fleet is serviced there.
LATAM operates under separate operator certificates in Brazil, Chile, Colombia Peru and Ecuador. It connects Chile and Brazil with eight routes and 100 flights per week. At the end of the first quarter, the carrier said LATAM Airlines Brasil reached a 39% market share in that country.
The company will report second-quarter earnings later this week.
