has the potential to realign air travel between the U.S. and South America; between South America and Europe; between South America and the Mideast; and between South America and Australia.
LATAM will leave the oneworld alliance, which includes American, British Airways, Iberia, Qantas and others. For its part, American says little is lost by having Delta take over this partnership – American suggests that it was generatinga year from the relationship with LATAM, and without being able to build on the partnership between the U.S. and Chile they had limited upside going forward.
Colombia's Avianca is closely tied to United Airlines through debt. There's little opportunity to wrest away a partnership with that troubled airline. This bolster’s Delta CEO Ed Bastian’s claim that alliances are losing relevance to airlines and to consumers, and may lead other airlines to closely scrutinize their participation in SkyTeam, oneworld, and Star Alliance with wide ranging implications. However it also leaves openings from oneworld members that previously partnered with LATAM and that aren’t named American Airlines.