For Chile, a country stretched almost 6,000 km long on the western side of South America it was absolutely natural to employ airplanes as early as they became available.
     In March of 1929 LAN was founded and started domestic flights.
     The carrier grew fast and inaugurated international flights to Argentina, the USA, Tahiti, Australia and the Easter Islands before also conquering Europe with daily services to Madrid and Frankfurt since 1980 that continue until today.
     LAN actually incorporates a handful of carriers based in several countries for obviously a number of practical reasons – such as traffic rights for example.
     But they all operate absolutely coordinated under one star and gradually become full members of the expanding oneworld alliance. The characteristic three letters with the silvery star originally stand for “Linea Area Nacional - LAN”.
     LAN acted fast after the Varig problems last year.
     The airline now connects Argentina and the Brazilian key markets with high frequency.
     The entire LAN fleet presently consists of 70 airplanes including 36 from Boeing and 34 from Airbus with an additional 24 on order from Airbus and 5 from Boeing.
     LAN Cargo Holding is gathering all cargo activities of the several national subsidiaries under one label that operates as a highly independent division.
     In Europe LAN management is located in Madrid for the passenger business and in Frankfurt for cargo.
     The organization is lean, efficient and extremely successful.

Room with a view and things are looking up for Frank Hermann LAN Cargo sales manager Europe (left) and Director Europe, Guido Henke at Cargo City South Frankfurt.

     Guido Henke is LAN Cargo director for Europe.
     Frank Hermann looks after the commercial part and Martin Rehs is head of operation. With the exception of Germany and Spain LAN Cargo capacity is sold through a hand selected group of GSSA's all over Europe. About 40 people cover the entire range of capacity planning, customer service call centre, sales and GSSA-steering, operations and accounting.
     A high degree of attention is given to optimizing the on load on pallets and containers – the operations group is after every kilo – the philosophy is that 1,500 kilos left behind are a waste of more than 3,000 Euro. The respective weights are carefully registered with underloads rigorously recorded and reviewed – daily, weekly, monthly.
     The overall impression here at FRA is that the spirit among the very young crew of 30 is excellent.
     All speak Spanish of course and many bring some international touch into the daily work like the boss himself who is a German who grew up in Argentina.
     With estimated 29,500 tons carried out of Europe, the region contributes a solid 23 % to the carrier’s cargo volume. The available capacity in 2006 was 33 % higher than in 2005.
     Currently LAN Cargo Europe offers two B767F departures a week from FRA to VCP and SCL and one frequency weekly via a B767F as well from Frankfurt to Miami with numerous on forwarding connections to Latin America.
     LAN has a capacity interchange with Lufthansa Cargo offering space on all freighters to São Paulo, VCP.
     For several years LAN Cargo in Europe acted as kind of GSA for the fast growing Brazilian carrier TAM.
     The agreement has been discontinued as today minus Varig both carriers compete for business across their home continent.
     For Guido Henke and Frank Hermann this means that capacity out of Europe is cut – and they are looking for a new cooperation partner in the near future.
Guenter F. Mosler