Delta Air Lines will make investments in Virgin Atlantic, Aeromexico and LATAM as as each carrier emerges from restructuring or recapitalization following the pandemic.
Upon completion of their respective processes, Delta is targeting a 20% equity stake in Aeromexico and a 10% equity stake in LATAM.
In addition, Delta will maintain its 49% equity stake in Virgin Atlantic. The airline’s investment in these carriers will be approximately $1.2 billion.
A decade of partnerships
Over the past 10 years, Delta has built partnerships with flagship airlines across Europe, Asia and Latin America.
As international travel demand returns, the connectivity, relevance and breadth of Delta’s global network with its partners remains critical to continuing this success.
“These strategic investments in our partners will transform our ability to improve the travel experience for our customers, enabling us to deliver a seamless travel experience alongside offering our customers an unrivalled network between North American and premier markets worldwide,” said Delta CEO, Ed Bastian.
“The work each of our partners has done to strengthen their businesses for the future makes these partnerships even more valuable and creates a new era of international travel to benefit our customers, our employees and our investors as global travel rebounds in 2022 and beyond.”
Delta’s partnerships with Virgin Atlantic, Aeromexico and LATAM expand that growth potential, helping to fuel route additions, customer connectivity and associated job creation:
- Aeromexico: The airlines’ existing Joint Cooperation Agreement (JCA) launched in 2017. Over the past four years, Delta and Aeromexico have built a leading trans-border network of more than 40 popular business and leisure routes from their main hubs and offering the most service in the largest New York and Los Angeles markets.
- LATAM: Delta and LATAM’s trans-American Joint Venture Agreement will combine the carriers’ highly complementary route networks between North and South America. Following Chilean Court approval of the JV in October this year, Delta and LATAM expanded their existing codeshares to improve connectivity between North and South America.
- Virgin Atlantic: Delta’s joint venture with Virgin Atlantic has, since 2013, solidified Delta’s position on key U.S.-U.K. routes including the leading business route New York-JFK to London Heathrow.
There is no change to Delta’s investments in AFKL, Korean Air and China Eastern.
