Brazil: Qatar Airways-LATAM tie-up cleared

Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, Brazil’s competition authority, has approved Qatar Airways’ investment in LATAM Airlines Group, but the regulator has also expressed misgivings about LATAM’s proposed joint venture with International Airlines Group.

The approval of Qatar Airways taking up to a 10% stake in LATAM worth more than $600 million is welcome news for LATAM, the largest Latin American airline company, which believes foreign investment and transnational JVs are critical to its future. But the delay in approval of a transatlantic JV with IAG carriers British Airways and Iberia—oneworld partners with LATAM—is concerning to LATAM CEO Enrique Cueto.

Speaking this week at the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association Airline Leaders Forum in Mexico City, Cueto said major airlines in North America, Europe and Asia in well-established antitrust-immunized JVs have an advantage over Latin American carriers. “Everything comes to our region five to 10 years later,” he said. “Either we get into this model or we’ll be bought by others and we’ll disapper.”

Full Content: Air Transport Word

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