LATAM Airlines Group says it is «positive» on US-Brazil open-skies falling into place, even as it acknowledges that it is still waiting for the deal to progress through government bureaucracy.
While Brazil’s congress has cleared the open-skies deal, it has yet to receive presidential endorsement and is not officially ratified.
«It’s more of a bureaucratic process,» says LATAM’s senior commercial vice-president Roberto Alvo on an earnings call. «Once that happens, we will file with the [US] DOT for a joint venture between LATAM and American. Then we would have to wait for the DOT to pronounce itself.»
The launch of the US-Brazil open-skies pact has been a long-drawn-out process, with the agreement initially meant for implementation in October 2015.
Despite this, Alvo says the airline is positive as «we have passed most of the milestones»…
