LATAM Brasil will retire its entire A350 fleet

LATAM Airlines Brasil - Airbus A350-900 (PR-XTM) - Photo: AirTeamImages.com - Matthieu Douhaire

As part of its fleet restructuring, the Latin American airline, LATAM Airlines Brasil, will retire eleven Airbus A350-900s from its fleet by the end of April this year.

LATAM Brasil CEO, Jerome Cadier, communicated the A350 retirement announcement in a letter sent to employees on April 8th, 2021. The A350s will be retired from the company by the end of this month's fleet.

Here’s the personally signed letter by the CEO announcing their departure. pic.twitter.com/VmhPFknIbP

— Jan-Hendrik Fiedler (@FlyingFan1) April 8, 2021

LATAM Airlines Brasil will use Boeing widebody aircraft exclusively on its international flights, with six Boeing 767s and six Boeing 777s.

LATAM Airlines - Boeing 767-300 (CC-CWY) - Photo: AirTeamImages.com - Steven Marquez

LATAM Airlines - Boeing 777-300ER (PT-MUF) - Photo: AirTeamImages.com - Steven Marquez

According to the CEO of LATAM Brasil: "This decision, in addition to obtaining a smaller and more homogeneous fleet, aims a more efficient widebody operation to get through this period of lower demand for seats in our operations and international flights." says Cadier.

With the addition of Boeing's widebody aircraft models, LATAM Brazil filed a request with Brazil's National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) to include a new aircraft model in the Brazilian subsidiary's fleet: the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

LATAM Airlines - Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner (CC-BBF) - Photo: AirTeamImages.com - Vincenzo Pace 

LATAM's current situation 

The LATAM group ended last year with a loss of US$4.5 billion as the Latin American airline's revenue decreased by -58.4% to US$4.3 billion.

LATAM carried around 28.2 million passengers in this period - corresponding to a drop of -61.9% compared to 2019. In 2019, the airline carried 74.1 million passengers on its flights.

LATAM Airlines Brasil aircraft utilization statistics on the RadarBox:

In the graph above, the Airbus A350-900 is the seventh most used aircraft by the airline, averaging 8 flight hours, 1.4 flights per day, with 11 flight hours on average per day - generally used on international and long-range routes.

LATAM Airlines Brasil Route Heatmap on the RadarBox: