There are milestones that mark the course of history and I’ve had the honor to follow closely the biggest change in the aviation business in the American continent. The two biggest airlines in South America decided to start a new brand that today seeks to bring together the dreams of its passengers to the world.
LAN and TAM are now: LATAM
Latam Airlines Group was born from the merger of the two biggest and known airlines in South America, Chile’s LAN and Brazil’s TAM, unifying the experience of 86 and 39 years of operation respectively.
After being powerful references and being part of the history of aviation, these companies have contributed to the growth, development, and increased connectivity within South America and to the world.
Currently, every minute there’s a Tam or a Lan plane flying somewhere in the world, these two companies are flying together over 1,500 daily flights to over 135 destinations within South America, Europe, the United States, Australia and the Caribbean.
This company received the award for ‘Best Airline in South America’ in the Skytrax World Airline Award for the past seven years.
The integration of the two companies began in June 2012 with the interest of providing a new and simpler travel experience to its passengers.
The new brand has included an aircraft renewal plan and as LATAM has incorporated new modern and efficient aircraft, LAN was the first airline to operate the Boeing 787 and TAM was also the first operator of Airbus A350 XWB in the American continent.
The makeover has begun to be seen in April 2016, starting with an investment of 40 million dollars and will gradually be reflected on the website, mobile app for checking flight status, in-flight entertainment, boarding passes, frequent flyer program and new uniforms.
Know more about the new brand HERE
The first LATAM Airline flight
The first flight with the new LATAM image in the livery was a Boeing 767, which was the same who brought the Olympic Torch on May 1st to South America, from Geneva to Rio de Janeiro, the Torch will visit more than 300 cities started in Brasilia.
To celebrate the new brand image there were three inaugural flights on which the new brand was presented.
Not every day you get able to live so close a historic moment. I was honored to be invited to participate in the first commercial flight of LATAM with other passionates about travel and aviation.
The first commercial flight was on May 5, it was the flight number 8118 that flew from Sao Paulo to Santiago de Chile (9:05 local time), that day will be marked in our lives and in global aviation.
No todos los dĂas se vive tan de cerca un momento histĂ³rico. Tuve el honor de participar del primer vuelo comercial de LATAM junto a otros apasionados por los viajes y la aviaciĂ³n.
The other two flights were Santiago-Lima, in an Airbus A319 at 09:10 local time; and Sao Paulo -Brasilia in an Airbus A319 at 14:20 local time.
By the end of 2016, LATAM plans to have more than 50 aircraft with the new design to complete the whole fleet in 2018. The painting of the aircraft will be performing as they perform routine maintenance to optimize the 6 to 12 days this process takes in each airplane. The first two days are to remove the paint and then four days to paint layers ending with the Clearcoat technology that gives shine, protects from extreme temperatures and helps with aerodynamic.
The aircraft paint technology used in this process reduces the aircraft weight by 20kg, 25% lighter than conventional, it is also environment-friendly since by reducing the aircraft weight will reduce CO2 emissions by 3,900 Tons per year.
The latest aspect on being implemented are the Frequent Flyer Programs, by the moment they will continue to operate as LAN and TAM accessed through a common website.
   
How exciting. Interesting little point: Flight 8118. The numbers in numerology add up to 18, which reduces to 9, which, I believe, represents New Start. Auspicious, don’t you think?
Awwww That’s really cool! Didn’t thought about that before. Good point đŸ˜‰