Taca Peru has been cleared by the US DoT to start flying between Lima and Miami, and intends to start a daily flight in December.
They are also starting operations to Bogota, La Paz and Panama City this month.
I think this means ever more travel options for the Latinpass members

Did Saeta ever return to the air?

It's only gonna help us if Taca Peru can stay in business!

With Lan Peru, Aero Continente, and 3-4 other carriers in a small country it's gonna be tough, look at Canada as a good example.

The only way Taca peru will stay arround is if they can get the trafic through Peru with travelers going North-South.

This will also be tough as the only major North-South routes are into Santiago, or Buenos Aires. These routes are already well covered by LAN Chile/Peru and Aerolinas Argentinas, as well as other carriers flying in direct.

There is vertualy no East/West routes as Lima is as West as you can go. The only other options is regional routes, which as stated before are very saturated with the other carriers, fighting for a limited amount of business.

Another disadvantage is the "Foreign" stigma Taca has in Peru. Let's face it it's equivalent to getting U.S. residents to flying Japan Airlines between Cincinatti and New York!

But Taca is a quality airline that can pass US DOT requirements. Something I doubt Aerocontinente and others can do.

I think TACA should also look into direct Ecuador - USA routes as Ecuatoriana lost its right to fly to North America because of safety concerns. Perhaps a Lima-Quito-Miami
and Lima-Quito-Toronto route!!

I would say the word "Quality" is stretching things a bit. The only Quality carrier down that way is ACES.

However you are correct that TA has rights to the U.S. and Canada. I don't think they have the aircraft right now to do a long UIO-YYZ route however.

As for your comparission to equitoriana, I think it goes along with my concern. Other airlines in the region have failed because trafic to Equador/Peru is to small to divide between 7-8 carriers.

People who fly MIA, CCS, BOG or PTY to EZE or Santiago are not going to want to stop in UIO or LIM if they don't have to. This means J Class will be empty, and Y class will be on discounted fares! Not a good fiscal way of running a airline

I would say that the word QUALITY when refering to TACA is completely accurate.

LanChile have a service MIA-SCL stopping in CCS another stopping in both BOG and GYE and in January are inaugurating a BOG-UIO-SCL service. Similarly some of their NYC,MIA,LAX-SCL,EZE services stop in Lima. So there certainly seems to be demand for safe QUALITY airlines to and within the region.

[This message has been edited by 3544quebec (edited 11-13-2000).]

What are you saying? First your saying TACA is quality, Ok if you say so
Then you talk about LAN Chile, we were speaking of the Northern South American region Peru, Equador, Colombia, Venezuela.

We obviously will disagree with TACA's quality issue. Personally I've taken too many flights in C.A. that turn out to be all day milk runs to consider them anything less than a mediocre monopoly, run by overworked and underpaid poorly trained staff, that is my honest opinion. However if you had a better experiance on TACA please let us all know!

LAN Chile I can not comment on, but it seems to me that if we are speaking of competition it can't be any worse than TACA, and if all things are equal obviously people will take LAN Chile with only a stop in LIM or UIO rather than an actual transfer of planes with TACA PERU. I am sure however that LAN Chile is a good Airline and offeres far better service that TACA!

Flying Dutchman - AFAIK Saeta never came back in business. Ecuatoriana - part owned by VASP - has now done a deal with LanChile for flights between Ecuador and the US. VASP itself of course is in finanacial difficulties and has predominantly retracted to Brazil.

As for the other topic in this thread, I think both TACA and Aces are pretty good, and hold up quality wise against many North American and some European airlines.

TACA Peru is certainly a lot better than the domestic airlines that used to fly - if you have ever been on Americana, AeroPeru or even worse Grupo 8, then you realise the breadth of fresh air that these new airlines are.

Regarding the nationality of the airline, Taca Peru is as foreign as Lan Peru. AeroContinente is the only serious domestic airline at the moment, and they have (are trying) in classic tit-for-tat style to start an airline in Chile. Maybe the next thing they do is start an airline in El Salvador.

Regarding their hub strategy, isn't that the basic tenet of most of the US airline industry (except of course Southwest). Oh, and Lima is not quite as west as you may think. Most of North and Central America is further west than Lima!

Finally, although Peru may be a poor country, small it isn't (although everything is relative) and it has a very large tourist potential with lots of foreigners visiting Peru.

Canadian

I'd suggest you read your second post in this thread where you said:
"People who fly MIA, CCS, BOG or PTY to EZE or Santiago are not going to want to stop in UIO or LIM if they don't have to."

My comments about LanChile address directly those routes that you cited.

As for your statement:
" However if you had a better experience on TACA please let us all know!"
If you look through all the posts regarding the LatinPass mileage runs you will see the great majority were more than satisfied with the quality of the inflight and ground service from not only ACES but Grupo Taca and Avianca as well. I think that selection of reports holds more weight than my personal opinion or experiences.

Ati - you're right about SAETA, but there still is some hope of them flying again. When I flew through Guayaquil 3 months ago the 2 SAETA 727's were parked in the hangers- at least they don't seem to have been repossessed yet!! I'll have a look when I pass through again in 2 weeks.


[This message has been edited by 3544quebec (edited 11-14-2000).]

I wish there were good discussions like this over in AeroMexico, AeroCalifornia, or Mexicana. Does _anybody_ else travel to Mexico??

I would travel to Mexico - I'm just waiting for my 1M miles to post!

Actually I am going to Mexico on an AC/MX code share from YYZ in early Dec. and will do a flight report for you all.

I will just tell everyone that yes I do agree that TACA is a better option than Aero Continente, and I think TACA (Peru) does not have the milk runs in S. America like it has in C. America, so it is a good option.

I only state my concern over it's ability to compete with so many carriers, keep any standard of quality and safety, and still break even!

The comparison of hub and spoke is however not the same. AA has a hub and spoke out of DFW with probably 80% of it's pax's able to connect within 2 hrs max. With the eratic service in S. America it is much more likely to have 8-48 hour layovers in Lima. Obviously that will put some off flying through LIM with a change of plane!