Originally Posted by Al B
Why wouldn't I be all that worried if they went??
RG's hubs on the far east of the continent make for bad intra-SthAm connections/flying and their International routes are pretty much covered by other partners these days.
The hubs are pretty well located if coming from Europe, and they are often the only * option if coming from the US.
Originally Posted by Al B
Even intra-SthAm between some of the more major points are
covered to a small extent by the partners - LH operates GRU-EZE,
LX does GRU-SCL, AC offers SCL-EZE & UA EZE-MVD.
That's a very small South-American network. And those routes are operated just once a day at less than optimal times. For better or for worse, RG was the only *A carrier flying to most points of South America, including major brazilian cities like SSA (actually TP does fly to SSA from Portugal, but that's of use only if coming from Europe). For *A members in South America, RG provided one of the best mileage redemption opportunities.
Originally Posted by Al B
I would go as far to say TACA's network would be much more convenient with more "direct" north-south flying as opposed to RG's current long backtracks to the east & they would certainly cover a Star gap of Central American flying as well.
TACA would be a most welcome addition to *A, however their route structure has pretty much no overlap with Varig's. So they wouldn't be a feasible replacement, except for a couple specific routes like West Coast-LIM. One can always hope for TAM to become part of *A but it is a long shot.
As an Argentinean with family and friends in EZE and flying to both Argentina and Brazil often, the dissappearance of RG would likely force me to defect to 1W.