By Ricardo J. Delpiano
The main national airline and one of the largest in the continent prepares to make certain adjustments to its network of inland routes, which will allow the airline to cope with the changes of the aviation industry at the recent events, as it also gives the company greater flexibility as far as operations are concerned.
The growth of long-haul fleet has been affected by the delay on the B787, forcing to make adjustments. Photo: Alejandro Ruiz
The last time the company through its various subsidiaries has made a significant increase in air operations through the launch of new routes and a general increase in frequency, which have allowed increase the global coverage of the airline on the continent. Thus, for example, opened new routes such as Toronto (deleted from next April 3), San Francisco, Paris CDG at long range, while in South America increased over the network routes between Lima-Falls, Lima, Brasilia, Lima-Rosario, among others. This significant increase in services should be accompanied by the arrival of new aircraft, including the first Boeing 787-8, which to date should have been delivering to the company, but after the new program delay will not be until that date next year.
lag B787-8 has forced the airline to adopt contingency plans to strengthen its fleet with new Boeing 767-300ER units as a way to mitigate as much as possible the delay, despite the availability of slots in production chain makes the immediate availability is not possible to bear the fixed network growth for the current period. This coupled with differences operations in relation to the Dreamliner B767, also affect the contingency long-haul fleet and focusing 1:1 is not only a continental level. The initial schedule in delivering the B787, would enable the company to add new aircraft (two initially) which would be placed on routes where the existing B767-300ER have greater operational constraint, as in the sections Lima-Madrid, where the distance factor and range of the aircraft agrees to payload restrictions. With built-B787, LAN would be able to release some of the B767s and redirected to other routes within the region more responsive to the type of aircraft, both in scope and amount of payload carried. Today those changes can only be perform a year later when the new Boeing product makes its expected debut in the fleet.
At short range, the arrival of new A319 and A320 aircraft from July 2010 has ensured a growth in domestic and regional routes, fleet due to its versatility has become a mainstay of continental operations. In recent months there have built 15 planes and that the remaining teams will be added to arrive this year, which will allow further advance the development of the network. The presence of LAN in different countries, enabling the company to distribute its fleet in each of the markets from which to serve the different routes region without using the B767 fleet in these operations, leaving it almost exclusively to long-haul flights.
On the other hand, the increase in oil prices creates the right time to reduce some frequencies, as expressed in the note of the newspaper El Mercurio (25/03/2010) and analyze each of the operations according to international situation and to establish possible reductions in operations. Parallel
signing new interline agreements with new companies, more international partnerships and has LAN-both through Oneworld as with other companies, have enabled the national airline to continue increasing the network from various points, creating new travel alternatives for passengers and clients, also venturing into new market segments. For example we can mention the agreements with Jet Blue and Jet Star signed in recent months, which underpin the routes in Australasia and North America along with providing more choice as that segment of travelers oriented "leisure."
developed by LAN strategy in recent years allow the company back to accommodate changes in the various scenarios, whether financial, or operational planning. To this is added the versatility and homogeneity of the fleet of LAN, which allows adjustments with very little variation and easily adjustable according to each scenario, whether internal or external. The reduction in operations and the arrival of new aircraft scheduled for this year will help the company further develop its network, thanks to greater availability of equipment, allowing you to successfully address future plans, as the transformation of Aires in Colombia - and equipment available to deal with possible contingencies.
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