Starting November 5, Brazil's flagship airline TAM and the LAN alliance, which includes LAN Airlines, LAN Peru, LAN Argentina and LAN Ecuador, will begin a code-share flight agreement. LAN Airlines, from Chile, will the first one to participate. LAN Peru and LAN Argentina will follow still in November.
The new partnership will allow TAM to offer its passengers flights to 14 cities in Chile, such as Antofagasta, Calama, Concepcion, Iquique, La Serena, Puerto Montt, Punta Arenas and Valdivia. LAN clients will also be eligible for Tam flights to 12 Brazilian cities, including Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Florianópolis, Brasília, Recife, Manaus and Porto Seguro, among others.
Code sharing will increase the number of seats available between São Paulo and Santiago, as the two companies will operate with shared codes on flights between Brazil and Chile.
In addition to the São Paulo-Lima route with LAN Peru, the agreement will cover 11 other cities in Peru (Arequipa, Chiclayo, Cuzco, Puerto Maldonado and Tarapoto, among others) and nine Brazilian cities served by TAM (Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Salvador, Manaus, Florianópolis, Foz do Iguaçu and Porto Seguro).
The partnership with LAN Argentina will allow for an increase in number of flights between Brazil and Argentina for both countries' customers, with flights leaving São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Curitiba and Florianópolis. Destinations operated by TAM and LAN Argentina in their respective countries are also being considered.Â
The code share agreement will include LAN flights from Buenos Aires to Bariloche, Com. Rivadavia, El Calafate, Mendonza, Rio Gallegos, Salta and Ushuaia, in Argentina; and TAM flights from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to 14 cities in Brazil.
Another benefit passengers will reap from the commercial alliance between TAM and LAN, TAM officials announce, is that trips will be completed with just one ticket from start to finish, with luggage sent to the final destination.
In November, passengers of either company will also be able to accumulate and redeem points through the TAM Loyalty Program and miles with Lanpass on flights operated by either company.
