History
The airline was founded by Chilean Air Services Commander Arturo Merino Benitez (for whom the Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport was named some years later), and began operations on March 5, 1929 as Línea Aeropostal Santiago-Arica. It took the name Línea Aérea Nacional de Chile (LAN Chile – In English: National Airline of Chile) in 1932.
In 1970 the airline had its headquarters at Los Cerillos Airport.
In September 1989, the Chilean government privatized the carrier, selling a majority stake in the company to Icarosan and Scandinavian Airlines, which subsequently sold its stake a few years later to local investors. Since 1994, major shareholders have been the Cueto Family and businessman Sebastián Piñera (Until 2010), who sold his shares when taking office as President of the Republic of Chile.
The approval from the Chilean Anti-monopolies Board resulted in the acquisition of control of the country's second airline Ladeco on August 11, 1995. In October 1998, LanChile merged Fast Air with Ladeco. In March 2004 Lan Chile and its subsidiaries LAN Perú, LAN Ecuador, LAN Dominicana and LANExpress became unified under the single LAN brand, instead of prior Linea Aerea Nacional. On June 17, 2004 LAN Chile changed its formal name to LAN Airlines (which was said to mean Latin American Network Airlines, even though the airline says LAN is no longer an abbreviation now) as part of this re-branding process. In mid-2005 LAN opened its subsidiary LAN Argentina in Argentina and operates national and international flights from Buenos Aires, and is the third largest local operator behind Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral. This subsidiary is also under the single LAN brand.
LAN Airlines has the following subsidiaries and shareholdings: LAN Cargo (99.4%), LAN Express (99.4%), ABSA - Aerolinhas Brasileiras (73.3%), LAN Perú (70%), LAN Dominicana (49%), LAN Ecuador (45%), LAN Argentina (49%), MasAir (39.5%) and Florida West International Airways (25%). It also has 15,456 employees.
LAN codeshares with American Airlines and Alaska Airlines to U.S. destinations, British Airways and Iberia to European destinations, to Brazilian internal destinations with TAM Linhas Aéreas, to Asian destinations with Cathay Pacific and Korean Air, and some destinations in Australia and New Zealand with Qantas.
As of August 1, 2006, LAN Airlines merged first and business classes of service into a single class, named Premium Business.
On August 13, 2010, LAN signed a non-binding agreement with Brazilian airline TAM Airlines to merge, and form the LATAM Airlines Group. The merger was completed on 22 June, 2012.
On October 28, 2010, LAN has acquired 98% ot the shares of AIRES, the second largest carrier in Colombia. In December 3, 2011 AIRES started operating as LAN Colombia
Read more about this topic: LAN Airlines
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)