Am I the only one seeing this merger proposal will NOT go through? LATAM will be the biggest player in Latin America by a wide margin - completely dominating markets of Brazil and Chile.

I think the Chilean government is fine with it since President Pinera is essentially the owner of LAN, and Chile is very pro-business and wants to be the leader in South America. Different story in Brazil however and there's a serious anti-trust/competition issue there.

I see most lobbying by Star and oneworld will be in Brazil. Star Alliance will first try to get LATAM in ther camp, with Plan B of lobbying to block the merger if LATAM goes with oneworld. Plan C is to accelerate the ascension of Avianca-TACA . Too bad Aerolineas Argentinas is not "rescuable". Argentina the country and the market is great. The government is terrible.

If I were Star Alliance I would also lobby the governments of Peru and Argentina to block the merger, ie forced separation of LAN Peru and LAN Argentina from LATAM, should LATAM goes to oneworld.

There just aren't that many airlines in South America for every allliance to share, unlike China and India. Star Alliance should seriously get LATAM in their camp.