It has never been easy to be an airline in Latin America. High taxes and fees, heavy regulation and lack of infrastructure have long been the status quo in many of the region's countries, along with political and economic upheavals that hop from one nation to another. The region has had its aviation successes, nevertheless. Consolidated flagships, most noticeably LATAM, have forged equity partnerships with US and European carriers (in LATAM's case, cash-rich Delta Air Lines), and LCCs and ultra-LCCs have proliferated, moving into markets previously wholly controlled by bus companies. Panama-based Copa Airlines has long been held as a standard bearer for how far Latin American carriers could go if they had aviation-supportive governments. All that has crumbled under the COVID-19 pandemic.
展开▼
