Flights to the Galapagos Islands – LATAM Ecuador

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We now continue with the second installment about flights to the Galapagos Islands from LATAM Ecuador. As part of a special composed of 3 deliveries, we will talk about the 3 airlines that operate regular flights to the Archipelago on a regular basis from mainland Ecuador.

First delivery: Avianca Ecuador.
Third installment: Tame EP.

As we reviewed in the part 1 of this special, Flights to the Galapagos are not common and cannot be started outside of Ecuador., since health and immigration controls are mandatory. For instance, every time a plane is going to take off to the Islands, cabin crew spray a special disinfectant spray in the overhead compartments, front and rear galleys and in the aisles of the plane, thus ensuring that no pathogen or agent foreign to the islands could reach such a delicate ecosystem..

History of flights to Galapagos

Flights to the Galapagos have a relatively short history. These started on 6 February 1936, at that time with the transport of mail and cargo that was carried out by seaplane from Guayaquil, Salinas or Manta, since there was no runway enabled for land landings. For March 1942, facing a potential war in the Pacific and in order to defend the Panama Canal, The United States built 3 landing strips on the islands, being the main one in Baltra, where a Consolidated B-24 Liberator was the first aircraft to land in the Galapagos.

Subsequently, the 3 of January of 1959 regular commercial flights arrived, at that time with the defunct airline LIA - Línea Internacional Aereas, which operated in Ecuador since 1958 until 1961 based in Quito flying with Curtiss C-46 aircraft and was even named as flag carrier of Ecuador and the main one during its brief history. The 6 June 1963 operations were consolidated with Tame flights on C-47 Skytrain aircraft.

Since that time, Flights to Galapagos have been maintained uninterrupted and in the face of growing tourist demand, flights were also started to San Cristobal and the interest of airlines in flying to such an attractive destination was growing and it became a desired destination for the large airline groups in the region.. Given that interest, Airlines such as Copa Airlines or Taca searched and studied projects to create subsidiaries in Ecuador, all in order to feed their networks with tourists seeking to reach the islands.

In this context, Finally, and with the opening of LAN Ecuador's domestic flights, 6 april 2009, the Ecuadorian airline that until then focused on international routes, became the third regular operator to the Islands, despite initial opposition from AeroGal and Tame.

LATAM Ecuador (formerly LAN Ecuador) second delivery:

So that LAN Ecuador has been able to start flying to the Galapagos, The authorities made it a condition to fulfill, that it operates its flights in shared code with any Ecuadorian airline. back then, AeroGal and Tame operated these 2 against his operation, Saereo that did not have an operating permit to Galapagos (later operated and flew inter-island) and Icaro the only one who was always in favor since his arrival in the country.

This is how LAN Ecuador and Icaro began their code-sharing operation, despite the fact that LAN would have proposed this agreement to all the airlines of the time, but none would have agreed to give up their frequencies and sales opportunity of the second most profitable destination on domestic flights in the country. (the first is Quito – Guayaquil). The agreement with the airline Icaro Air operated until it ceased operations and was dissolved in June 2011 by the Superintendency of Companies. After the closure of Icaro, LAN Ecuador maintained its assigned frequencies and was the operator with the greatest growth in number of passengers until at least 2014.

Itineraries and flights from LATAM Ecuador to Galapagos

Like the others 2 airlines, LATAM Ecuador operates Baltra and San Cristobal with the following times and frequencies:

Quito – Baltra – Quito direct

these flights, the airline does not operate them on a daily basis, but they do usually operate up to weekly flights depending on the high season.. The flights are operated with Airbus A319 aircraft.

Guayaquil – Baltra – Guayaquil

The airline operates until 2 daily flights between Guayaquil and Baltra, adding a total of 22 round trip weekly frequencies (has authorized 28 flights in total). These flights are operated with Airbus A319 aircraft.

Quito – Guayaquil – San Cristobal

Like the rest of the airlines that fly to San Cristóbal, The flights begin in Quito with an intermediate stopover in Guayaquil to refuel and load more passengers:

The 4 The airline's weekly frequencies are generated in Quito and stop in Guayaquil, operated with Airbus A319 aircraft with capacity for 144 passengers.

With such an interesting market, that move more than 200 thousand passengers a year, Recently, The airline's next request to the CNAC became known – National Civil Aviation Council of Ecuador, where LATAM seeks an increase in the number of flights to the Galapagos:

Airline @LATAM_ECU request to increase 4 weekly flights route #Baltra and 3 flights to #SanCristobal, #Galapagos from #Quito y/o #Guayaquil ✈️ pic.twitter.com/RHV20GbwlI

— Nicholas Larenas ✈️ (@n_larenas) October 4, 2017

AEROLANE National Airlines of Ecuador S.A (LATAM Airlines), seeks to increase 4 weekly flights to Baltra, what they would complete 18 approved weekly flights and 3 additional to San Cristóbal, with which they would complete the daily flight from Quito and/or Guayaquil.

For one calendar year, since July 2018, LATAM Ecuador has received 3 weekly frequencies between Guayaquil and Baltra, that were previously in the operating permit of Tame. This frequency reassignment, will allow LATAM to operate 2 daily flights between Guayaquil and Baltra, plus the 3 direct flights from Quito, adding up 17 weekly to Baltra:

The weekly operation from LATAM Ecuador to Galapagos accounts for a total of 21 weekly flights or 42 round trip, which positions it in second place currently in number of frequencies, that clearly, may vary depending on season.

Statistics

For the year 2015, still LAN Ecuador, was placed in second place in the market share share in flights to Galapagos with the 36%, just 1 point behind Avianca Ecuador.

In that same year 2015, LAN achieved the highest growth in the number of passengers transported, managing to grow a 11% more than him 2014, which represented the airline more than 7.839 tourists who traveled to and from the Islands. For the year 2016, the outlook for 3 operated was not favorable due to local economic factors, as well as the earthquake and global economic conditions, where tourism competition from neighboring countries, with marked and strong strategies, also had an impact on these numbers during the 2016.

 

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