LATAM Airlines Group

A Boeing 787 in indigo blue with a coral red stripe on the tail taxis to its parking position in Madrid. In the morning, a 777-300ER in exactly the same colors lands in Frankfurt. Both carry the “LATAM” titles – and yet they come from two different airlines in two different countries. Behind them stands the LATAM Airlines Group, South America’s largest airline group. It was formed from the merger of the Chilean LAN and the Brazilian TAM, and it doesn’t fly a single aircraft itself. The companies beneath it do that, each with its own operating certificate, its own ICAO code and often its own registration prefix.

Two traditional airlines, one group

The group’s two roots could hardly be more different. LAN is one of the oldest airlines in Latin America. The Chilean air force officer Arturo Merino Benítez founded it on March 5, 1929 as an airmail line between Santiago and Arica; from 1932 it was called Línea Aérea Nacional. Santiago’s airport is still named after him today. In the decades that followed, LAN wrote several chapters of aviation history: in 1956 the first commercial flight over Antarctica, from 1967 the link to Easter Island and from 1968 on to Tahiti, and in 1974 a nonstop flight from Punta Arenas over Antarctica to Sydney. In 1989 the state-owned airline was privatized, and in 2000 it joined the oneworld alliance.

TAM, by contrast, had a modest start. In 1961 a small air taxi company, Táxi Aéreo Marília, was founded in the Brazilian town of Marília. Under the pilot and entrepreneur Rolim Amaro it became a regional airline from 1976, grew rapidly in the 1990s and rose to become Brazil’s leading airline. Among other things, TAM flew a large Fokker 100 fleet, flew to Miami for the first time in the late 1990s and reached Europe in 1999 with Paris. In 2010 TAM joined Star Alliance.

In the same year, both airlines announced they would merge. In August 2010 they signed a first letter of intent, and in January 2011 the binding agreement. The authorities in Chile and Brazil approved, but with conditions – among other things, the new group had to commit to a single global alliance. On June 22, 2012 the merger was complete: LAN Airlines S.A. became the LATAM Airlines Group S.A., headquartered in Santiago de Chile.

Even after the merger, LAN and TAM initially remained visible as separate brands. Not until 2015 did the group announce that it would unite all companies under the common name LATAM. In April 2016 the first aircraft appeared in the new livery, and from May 2016 the companies officially operated as LATAM. If you have old photos with LAN or TAM titles in your archive, you now own genuine historical documents.

The group’s companies at a glance

The LATAM Airlines Group is an umbrella over several national airlines. There is a practical reason for this: In many South American countries, only domestic companies may offer domestic flights. That is why LATAM has a separate operation with its own operating certificate in every important market. According to the company, the group operates domestic traffic in five countries – Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – and flies international routes to North America, Europe, Oceania and Africa.

Tickets and departure boards often show the code LA – even for flights operated by a sister company. In the ADS-B signal and on the radio, by contrast, the ICAO code of the actual operator appears. How this fits together is explained in the articles IATA and ICAO codes and Codeshare flights explained.

The core company is the Chilean LATAM Airlines, the former LAN. The largest single company, however, is LATAM Airlines Brasil, the former TAM, with a dense domestic network in South America’s largest aviation market. The subsidiaries in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador go back to LAN’s expansion in the 2000s; in Colombia, LAN took over the regional airline Aires in 2010. The Paraguayan company, on the other hand, comes from the TAM family.

One company no longer exists: LATAM Airlines Argentina, which started in 2005 as LAN Argentina, ceased flight operations in 2020. Since then the group flies in Argentina only on international routes from its other markets.

The hubs and what you see there

LATAM spreads its traffic across several hubs, each with its own role.

Santiago de Chile is the seat of the holding company and home of the Chilean core company. From here flights go across the Pacific to Oceania, to North America and to Europe – on long-haul mostly with the Boeing 787-9 and the 787-8.

São Paulo-Guarulhos is LATAM Brasil’s most important hub and the gateway to Europe. Most of the group’s Europe flights depart from here, often with the Boeing 777-300ER, the largest type in the fleet. More on the airport can be found at São Paulo-Guarulhos Airport.

Lima connects the Andean countries with each other and with North America as the hub of LATAM Peru. Bogotá serves mainly as a node for Colombia and the Caribbean.

Add Miami as an important station in North America, especially for LATAM Cargo, which has had a large base there since 2000. If you spot in Florida, you see the group’s freighters and passenger jets far more often than in Europe – the guide Plane spotting in Miami and the entry on Miami Airport offer pointers.

Spotting LATAM in Europe

For spotters in Europe, LATAM is one of the few regular visitors from South America. After the overnight flight across the Atlantic, the widebody jets usually arrive in the morning or late morning and fly back in the evening. Why that is, the article When long-haul flights land in Europe explains.

Madrid-Barajas is the group’s most important destination in Europe. LATAM flights from Santiago and other hubs land here – which gives you the best chance of seeing different subsidiaries in one day. An overview of the spots is given by the plane spotting guide for Madrid, and a proven location is La Muñoza. The airport itself is introduced in the entry Madrid-Barajas Airport.

Frankfurt is the most obvious destination for German-speaking spotters. LATAM Brasil flies from São Paulo, mostly with widebody jets like the 777-300ER. Occasionally LATAM Cargo freighters come too. You get a good view of the traffic from the Zeppelinheim viewing platform; everything else is in the Frankfurt guide and at Frankfurt Airport.

Other LATAM Brasil destinations in Europe include Lisbon and Milan-Malpensa. Routes and frequencies have changed several times in recent years – check the current schedule before heading out.

The fleet: Airbus on short-haul, Boeing on long-haul

According to company figures, the group’s fleet comprises more than 350 aircraft, including freighters (as of 2026). The split is clear: On short- and medium-haul, LATAM relies almost exclusively on the Airbus A320 family, on long-haul on Boeing.

Short- and medium-haul: In service are the A319, A320, A320neo, A321 and, since 2023, the A321neo. More examples of the neo family are on order, as is the long-range A321XLR version. How to tell the variants apart is shown in the article A320neo or ceo?.

Long-haul: The backbone is the Boeing 787 in the -8 and -9 versions. The 777-300ER flies at LATAM Brasil on especially high-demand routes, and the 767-300ER supplements the fleet mainly on medium long-haul routes. The difference between the 777 and 787 is explained in the article Telling the Boeing 777 and 787 apart.

Cargo: LATAM Cargo operates a pure fleet of Boeing 767 freighters – factory-built 767-300Fs and converted 767-300ERs. The three 777Fs that LAN Cargo flew from 2009 to 2017 are history.

New in the lineup: In September 2025, LATAM ordered Embraer E195-E2 regional jets from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer. According to reports, the order comprises 24 firm orders and options on 50 more aircraft; first deliveries are planned from 2026. The E2s will be used by LATAM Brasil in regional traffic.

How to determine the right operator

With LATAM, the livery is practically no help: All companies look the same. The flight number is deceptive too, because the code LA is used by several subsidiaries. With these steps you can still get to a clean sighting.

For leased aircraft with a foreign crew, see the article Wet lease explained.

The LATAM livery

With the LATAM brand in 2016 came a new design: white fuselage, large LATAM titles in indigo blue, the tail in indigo with a coral red accent. Because all companies wear the same livery, the design is a reliable identifier for the group but no clue to the individual subsidiary.

The change is interesting for your archive: Until the repainting was complete, aircraft with LAN and TAM titles were still flying for some time. Today these liveries are gone. If you have an old LAN 787 or a TAM 777 in your archive, you own a piece of aviation history.

Alliances, Delta and Qatar: the group’s environment

Hardly any airline group has changed its alliance as often as LATAM. LAN had been in oneworld since 2000, TAM in Star Alliance from 2010. After the merger, the group chose oneworld in 2013, and TAM switched at the end of March 2014. How the three big alliances differ is explained in the article Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam.

In September 2019 came the big turn: Delta Air Lines announced it would acquire 20 percent of LATAM for about $1.9 billion and build a strategic partnership. Because Delta belongs to SkyTeam, LATAM left oneworld on May 1, 2020 – and the group has not joined another alliance to this day. Instead, LATAM and Delta work together via codeshare and in a joint venture on routes between North and South America.

Shortly afterward, the pandemic hit the group hard. On May 26, 2020, LATAM filed for creditor protection in the US under Chapter 11. In 2022 it completed the restructuring, and since July 2024 the stock has again been traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The stakes of the major shareholders changed in the process: According to figures from mid-2025, Delta and Qatar Airways each held around 10 percent.

For your collection, the rule is: A Delta jet with an LA codeshare number remains a Delta jet. For comparison, it is worth looking at other large groups, such as Air France-KLM, which likewise has several national operations, or the South American Abra Group around Avianca and GOL. In South America, LATAM also competes with low-cost airlines like JetSMART and Sky Airline as well as with Azul in Brazil.

Conclusion

The LATAM Airlines Group is the result of a merger of two very different traditional airlines: the Chilean LAN with roots going back to 1929 and the Brazilian TAM, which grew out of a small air taxi company. Since 2016, all companies have appeared under one brand and in one livery. That is exactly what makes the group demanding for spotters: If you want to separate LATAM Chile, LATAM Brasil and the other subsidiaries cleanly, you need callsigns and registrations. In Europe, the widebody jets in Madrid and Frankfurt are the best chances – and a 767 freighter in LATAM colors is a real stroke of luck.