Issues & Trends – Mar 2010
LAN bolsters Sydney office for Asia Pacific marketing push
LAN Airlines has boosted its Sydney-based regional management team, aiming to accelerate the traffic growth it has achieved in this market since introducing daily Sydney-Santiago services.
Appointments announced by the carrier’s Sydney-based general manager Australia, New Zealand and Asia, Rodrigo Contreras, will beef up the marketing and business analysis capabilities of its Sydney office.
The brief for the new marketing unit is to focus not only on expanding the fast-growing Australian and New Zealand market for travel to South America but also to develop the offline market in Asia “where we see great potential”, said Contreras.
He said the airline is increasing its resources to maximise the opportunities for growth in the Asia Pacific region “where the aviation industry is growing faster than in any other part of the world”.
Appointments announced by Contreras include marketing manager Australia, New Zealand and Asia Johanna Raeder and marketing executive Australia, New Zealand and Asia Yendi Benitez. In the business analysis area, Sandra Lucero has been appointed to work with market analysis manager Australia, New Zealand and Asia Mauricio Veloso.
And Andres Fernandez has been appointed to another new Sydney-based role – market manager, Asia.
“We are achieving healthy growth in both Australia and New Zealand and we are very encouraged by the strong results from our offline sales activities in Asia,” said Contreras. “The creation of our first marketing unit in the Asia Pacific region is a clear sign that we are confident about the future and that we are moving quickly to develop our in-house capabilities in order to maximise our growth opportunities.”
No doubt foreshadowing further increased marketing activity by the carrier, this month saw LAN host South American product road shows, involving a range of South American operators, for the first time in Australia.
The airline said the response from the Australian industry exceeded its initial expectations for the events in Sydney and Melbourne (where the road show coincided with AIME).
LAN, which last year celebrated the 80th anniversary of its formation in Chile in 1929, has started this year strongly, reporting a 17.7 per cent increase in total passenger traffic in January compared to the same month last year. Growth came mainly from the airline’s international operations which recorded a year on year passenger increase of 20.6 per cent in January. Over the same period it has achieved a load factor increase of 4.3 percentage points to 82.3 per cent.