LanPeru airline has received the government’s approval to offer seven flights a week to the United States for five years and will begin offering one flight to Miami from Lima pending U.S. approval, a spokesman at the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said.
The airline plans to run the Lima-Miami route with a Boeing 767.
“The airline has received the government’s authorization, but it needs the U.S. license,” the ministry spokesman said.
The spokesman said he didn’t know how long it would take to get U.S. approval.
No Peruvian airline has made overseas flights since flagship airline Aeroperu stopped flying in March, when its debt grew too high.
LanPeru, which is 51 percent owned by Peru’s Peruval and 49 percent by Chile’s LanChile, also will seek permission to fly to Los Angeles and New York, according to the ministry spokesman.
LanPeru started domestic operations in early July. The carrier’s entry has increased competition in troubled Peru’s airline market, which has mainly been controlled by Peru’s AeroContinente. AeroContinente last month received the government’s authorization to fly to the United States and also is waiting for U.S. approval.
But industry officials said LanPeru might get the U.S. license before AeroContinente, because the former president of AeroContinente has been ordered to appear before Peru’s judicial branch. The former president, Fernando Zevallos, is thought to be out of the country. Peru’s media have reported various allegations tying Zevallos to the drug trade.
Many Peruvian airlines have closed in recent years, the result, industry officials have said, of a price war led by AeroContinente. Another Peruvian airline, Transamerica, a subsidiary of Costa Rica’s flagship carrier Transporte Aero Centroamericano, or Taca, has received authorization for domestic operations.
Taca and another Peruvian airline, Aviandina, are waiting for the government’s authorization for international flights.
