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LATAM Airlines Group has opened its 2026 slot exchange tender at São Paulo Guarulhos International Airport, a high profile process mandated by Chile’s competition court that illustrates how tighter aviation rules are reshaping access to key South American routes.
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New Tender Process Targets Summer 2026 Operations
Publicly available information from LATAM shows that the group has launched a call for bids covering slot pairs at São Paulo Guarulhos for the Summer 2026 scheduling season. The invitation is framed explicitly as part of the LATAM Slots Exchange Procedure, created after competition authorities reviewed the legacy conditions attached to the merger of Chile’s LAN and Brazil’s TAM and sought updated remedies around access to congested airports.
The tender outlines a timetable leading up to the 2026 summer period, when successful bidders would be able to begin operations using the reassigned slots. Documentation associated with the process details how interested airlines can submit proposals, the deadlines they must meet, and the rules that govern allocation, including minimum use requirements and restrictions designed to prevent speculative hoarding of valuable peak-time slots.
LATAM’s notice emphasizes that the procedure is intended to allow rival carriers to initiate or grow services on trunk routes linking Chile and Brazil. Guarulhos serves as São Paulo’s main international hub and a critical gateway for traffic between Santiago, the broader Southern Cone, and long haul markets in Europe and North America, which increases the competitive significance of each slot pair put out to tender.
The dedicated procedure, approved by Chile’s Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia (TDLC), is presented as a standing framework that can be activated for successive seasons. This gives both LATAM and potential competitors a clearer view of when and how capacity may be opened in the future, rather than relying on ad hoc negotiations around slot surrender.
TDLC Conditions Trace Back to the LAN TAM Merger
The current exchange procedure has its roots in the conditions imposed when Chile’s competition court cleared the LAN TAM merger more than a decade ago. At that time, the TDLC identified the Santiago São Paulo corridor as a route where market power might increase and required the combined group to make daily slot pairs at Guarulhos available to competing airlines willing to operate services between the two cities.
Those commitments, reflected in the LATAM Slots Exchange Procedure, were designed to ensure that independent airlines could secure access to highly constrained infrastructure in Brazil. The TDLC’s published resolution detailed remedies that combined slot transfers with interline access, frequent flyer cooperation, and limits on capacity growth around exchanged slots, all intended to reduce barriers to entry and keep fares in check.
Over time, Latin American aviation has become more competitive, with low cost operators and regional groups entering Chilean and Brazilian markets. Despite this shift, regulators have kept a close watch on routes heavily served by LATAM, particularly where airport congestion or bilateral agreements limit the number of available frequencies. The renewal of the slot exchange mechanism for the 2026 season signals that legacy merger remedies remain a central tool within Chile’s competition policy.
Industry analysts note that the updated call to tender comes at a moment when other regulatory processes, including reviews of route allocation and oversight of airline transactions, are testing how Chile balances liberalization with safeguards against dominance on key regional links.
Slot Exchange Launch Coincides With Broader Chilean Competition Scrutiny
The 2026 slot exchange is unfolding against a wider backdrop of scrutiny over how air traffic rights and frequencies are awarded on international routes from Chile. In recent years, low cost carrier JetSmart has repeatedly challenged tenders on the busy Santiago Lima corridor, arguing that the structure of auctions favored incumbents and raised barriers for newer competitors.
Case records show that JetSmart brought a consultation before the TDLC over the 2023 tender in which LATAM secured the majority of new frequencies on Santiago Lima and Sky Airline obtained the remainder. The court ultimately concluded in early 2025 that the process complied with competition rules, a position later upheld by Chile’s Supreme Court, which found no significant anticompetitive risk in the way the Civil Aviation Board conducted the auction.
Parallel to these legal disputes, Chile’s Civil Aviation Board has been consulting on reforms to the regulation that governs how international frequencies are assigned. Airlines including LATAM, Sky and JetSmart have submitted sharply differing views on proposed changes, with some carriers warning that certain draft provisions could move away from Chile’s traditionally open aviation stance and risk entrenching market power.
Reports from the country’s competition enforcer, the Fiscalía Nacional Económica, also highlight growing concentration concerns around specific cross border markets. In its recent review of the acquisition of Sky Airline by Grupo Abra, the authority approved the deal but only with mitigation measures aimed at preserving rivalry on selected routes that overlap with other large networks in South America.
Implications for Airlines Seeking Growth on Chile Brazil Routes
For airlines eyeing expansion between Chile and Brazil, the 2026 slot exchange at Guarulhos represents one of the clearest structured pathways to gain entry into a congested hub. Carriers that succeed in the LATAM led tender could secure attractive timings on Santiago São Paulo and onward connections, potentially reshaping pricing and capacity on a corridor that has historically been dominated by a few large players.
The process may be particularly relevant for low cost operators and regional groups that already have a footprint in Chile or neighboring markets but have struggled to obtain scarce slots at major Brazilian airports. Access to Guarulhos can support both point to point services for leisure and visiting friends and relatives traffic and feed into broader network strategies involving connections to North America and Europe.
At the same time, the conditions embedded in the exchange procedure limit the ability of recipients to simply hold slots as strategic assets. Use it or lose it style requirements and constraints on increasing capacity around exchanged times are intended to ensure that the remedy translates into real, observable competition on the route, rather than paper transfers that leave the competitive landscape unchanged.
Observers note that the interplay between these merger related remedies and evolving route allocation rules creates a complex environment for planning. Airlines must navigate both the LATAM specific procedure mandated by Chile’s competition court and the broader frequency tenders run by aviation authorities when considering long term commitments on cross border routes.
Travelers Could See Pricing and Choice Shift Over Time
For passengers, the immediate impact of the 2026 slot exchange may not be visible until new or expanded services are scheduled closer to the summer season. However, past experience with frequency tenders and slot releases on routes such as Santiago Lima suggests that additional capacity and more carriers can lead to greater fare dispersion, promotional sales, and a wider range of schedule options.
Consumer advocates in Chile have long argued that maintaining multiple effective competitors on international routes is crucial in a market where geography makes air travel the primary mode of long distance transport. The combination of TDLC oversight, competition authority interventions, and ongoing regulatory updates reflects these concerns, particularly on high demand corridors linking Chile with Peru and Brazil.
Public filings from LATAM and regulatory bodies indicate that oversight will remain active in the coming years. The TDLC continues to monitor compliance with merger conditions, while the Civil Aviation Board refines its approach to allocating new and renewed frequencies. This suggests that additional slot exchange rounds or adjusted remedies could follow if authorities judge that competitive conditions are not evolving as expected.
As airlines respond to the 2026 Guarulhos tender and to evolving rules in Chile, travelers on Chile Brazil and broader regional routes are likely to face a shifting landscape of carriers and connections. The outcome of this year’s slot exchange will provide an early indication of how effectively Chile’s tightening competition framework translates into practical gains in choice and connectivity for passengers.
LATAM 2026 Guarulhos slot exchange notice
TDLC resolution on LAN TAM merger conditions
LATAM Annual Integrated Report 2024