In a diplomatic breakthrough involving four nations, Brazil's GOL has gained fifth freedom rights between Chile and Argentina and between Chile and Peru. Under this new authority GOL has already launched Buenos Aires-Santiago flights and plans to add Lima-Santiago service in November.
Coincidentally, four Central American nations have agreed to treat flights between them as "domestic" for purposes of assessing airport user charges. This accord between El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, which also calls for relaxed customs and immigration controls, is seen as a step toward transforming Central America into a single aviation market.
Insiders, however, warn against leaping to conclusions about Latin America suddenly embracing liberalisation. They note Costa Rica and Panama, two key players in any move toward Central American integration, have not signed the new treaty on "domestic" flights. And the common denominator in GOL's new fifth freedoms is Chile, the region's loudest voice for open skies.
Chile and Peru already have a liberal bilateral, so the significance of GOL's new fifth freedoms mainly is in the willingness of Argentina to allow them.
Liberalisation has a spotty history in Latin America. Two other multilateral attempts have borne little fruit. The Fortaleza accord of 1997 was supposed to free airlines within the Mercosur nations (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay) to fly between any secondary city-pairs without regard to bilaterals. Few airlines have used it.
Members of the Andean Pact (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia) have also granted each other open skies. But again it receives little use.
Latin America remains deeply divided over the need to protect its airlines versus opening its skies to more competition. As one official notes: "In many countries, the view toward liberalising aviation changes with the health of the economy."
Source: Airline Business
