What's Next for South America's Airlines?

Latin America's Airline Recovery Still Hard to Predict, Will Vary by Country

Pushing Back: Inside This Issue

The airline industry in Latin America and the Caribbean is in a tough spot. Some of its largest players are in the bankruptcy process, and some have stopped flying altogether, and the ones that remain are finding the region's patchwork quilt of travel restrictions tough to plan around. Some countries, like Mexico, are completely open. Others, like Chile, are shutting down again. And meanwhile, the coronavirus has shown it's not close to done, with a worrisome new surge of infections and deaths in Brazil. We take a look at the region in this week's Feature Story.

Elsewhere in this issue, Norse Atlantic's CEO is confident the U.S. will grant a foreign air carrier permit, despite noises from some of those who fought Norwegian Air International's entry into the U.S. It's a wholly different airline, Bjørn Tore Larsen said. Former United and Allegiant executive Andrew Levy's new airline starts flights at the end of the month. A Canadian airline plans to be like Porter, while Porter is grounded. And Frontier added a lot of routes.

Verbulence

"If you have the lowest costs in the industry, you have an advantage over every other airline competing for the same passengers."

Norse Atlantic CEO Bjørn Tore Larsen

The Airline Weekly Lounge Podcast

New episodes drop every Thursday and are available on our site or wherever you get your podcasts. In the latest episode, Editor Madhu Unnikrishnan and Brian Sumers, Skift editor at large, debate whether the U.S. really is on the cusp of a summer travel boom for airlines, or whether people will continue spending their discretionary income on plants (and other things).