ALTA Update

Transcript

Eduardo Iglesias:I personally think and feel that it will, it will continue to bring opportunities to Latin American carriers to engage in global competition. Bear in mind that we've been growing internally. or intra-region or intra-Latin America, but the time has come up for us to actually explore and engage into worldwide competition, and I think that that joint venture opens up the way for the LATAM Group to actually reach out of Latin America. Well, there's a lot of opportunity, especially when you see the traffic numbers in the region. We see seeing the growth of the new entrants as low cost. The main issue we have is that governments need to understand the importance of being more proactive in the sense of exploring different alternatives. What I'm trying to say here is that you cannot tax a low cost or any airline, but especially when you see the fares that some of these carriers are bringing into the markets, Taxes sometimes account for more than the airfare. So that's a big challenge in terms of being able to grow, especially when you have to reach out of a country and engage into international flying. Because when you fly domestic, usually the taxes applicable are much lower, just like in the U.S. and any other country in Europe. But once you start flying cross-border, that's when the higher airport taxes and fees kick in, and that's where you start having some distortions in terms of airfares and taxes. One of the most important messages that we discussed there is how important it is for governments to understand the value of aviation and what does it bring, or how much economic activity it actually stimulates. So that's one of the main messages. Another one is that the The need to invest in infrastructure. We are not asking for major marble shopping malls. What we are asking is for facilities that can actually fast-track the movement of people around. Thank you.

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