Sky Airline’s price war paying off as it snaps at heels of Latam

Sky Airline is on track to reach its target of 5m domestic passengers in Chile before 2020 as the low-cost airline seeks to take market share from Latam Airlines, according to Luis Felipe Ross, the carrier’s chairman. While a price war in the local market has driven down costs for consumers and boosted demand for flights, there’s still room to grow. Local authorities could help the trend by lowering boarding fees charged by airports that can account for a significant part of ticket prices. "It would be ideal to set up a dialogue with authorities about boarding fees," Ross said. "Chile has relatively high fees and lowering them could get even more people to fly." Created 14 years ago, Sky’s tactic of cutting prices is working as it muscles Latam and other rivals out of an ever larger share of the market. Passenger traffic at Sky rose 12% last year and continued to rise in 2017, boosting its market share to almost 27% in the first four months from just 18.8% seven years earlier. Latam saw its share shrink to 71.9% from 77.4% over the same period. Sky transported 3.2m passengers last year, of which 2.8m were in the domestic market.<br/>