Chile’s competition authority TDLC has given the green light to LATAM Airlines Group and Delta Air Lines to implement their planned joint venture. “The [TDLC] approved the [agreement] because it considered that the commitments and the obligations assumed by Delta and LATAM are intended to safeguard free competition in the markets concerned”, it says in a note on its website on 28 October. The ruling covers Delta’s minority stake in LATAM, a strategic alliance of the two carriers, as well as code-share agreements. It also allows Delta an ”indirect participation…in the financing of LATAM in the framework of the reorganization process” of LATAM’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The airlines must still await regulatory approval of antitrust immunity for the joint venture from the US Department of Transportation. LATAM and Delta have been working on a trans-american joint venture since September 2019, when Delta announced it would be taking a 20% stake in the Latin American carrier worth $1.9 billion. At that time, LATAM said it would be leaving the American Airlines-dominated Oneworld alliance, of which it had been a member for 20 years.<br/>
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Argentina’s flagship carrier expects domestic operations to reach pre-pandemic levels by July of next year, according to its top executive. Aerolineas Argentinas President Pablo Ceriani said flights to tourist destinations within the country, from Patagonia in the south to Iguazu Falls in the northeast, are picking up faster than expected as the country emerges from one of the longest and harshest lockdowns in Latin America. Ceriani said he still sees room to recover on international destinations. “We are operating at roughly 20 to 30% of pre-pandemic levels in Europe and Latin America,” Ceriani said in a phone interview from Bogota, where he was attending the Alta Airlines forum. “We will have to see how passengers react to vaccine certificates.” South America’s second-largest economy adopted strict travel measures during the pandemic, halting nearly all international and domestic flights for months last year. The country removed a daily entry cap of passengers applied earlier this year and foreign tourists will be authorized to enter the country starting in November. Pablo Ceriani, CEO of Aerolineas Argentina, speaks during an interview at the company’s headquarters at Aeroparque in Buenoes Aires, Argentina, on Monday, May 18, 2020. Argentina doled out about $600m in subsidies last year to keep its state airline afloat, a practice that precedes the pandemic. Ceriani said that he expects the full-year subsidy for 2021 to be lower than the previous year’s, and declined to provide an estimate for when the carrier plans to break even. <br/>
Shares of Vietnam Airlines will be limited from trading on the Hochiminh Stock Exchange from Nov. 3, due to the flag-carrier’s mounting losses, the bourse said in a filing. Vietnam Airlines’ accumulated loss reach 17.7t dong ($782.25m) as of end-June, the exchange said, adding that shares of the company will only be allowed to trade in the second half of the trading day. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Vietnam Airlines has been one of the hardest-hit firms in Vietnam during the COVID-19 pandemic. The national flag carrier is 86% owned by the state and plays a crucial role in the Southeast Asian country’s business and tourism economy. The company last month raised $351m from issuing new shares to its existing shareholders, after signing deals in July for loans worth $173.8m from three local banks to shore up its liquidity.<br/>