Airlines’ Latin Routes Expanding

Pedro Clavijo bends over the pile of suitcases, duffels and a shopping bag he lugged to the ticket line and pauses to catch his breath.

“This is nothing,” Clavijo says, waving at the bags he is checking for his flight home to Ecuador.

Lines full of luggage-loaded passengers headed to Latin America have been snaking through Newark International Airport as the airlines compete to serve a passenger market of more than 20 million travelers to Latin America. That number is expected to reach nearly 30 million people by the turn of the century.

Continental Airlines recently added five new flights from its hub in Newark to Latin American cities. Delta added routes from its Atlanta hub to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Venezuela, Guatemala and Peru. American and United are looking to expand already-strong presence.

“It is a growth market, but it is becoming much more competitive” among U.S.-based airlines, said Ray Neidl, an analyst at ING Barings Furman Selz in New York. “Carriers down there tend to be very weak.”

The growth in travel is spurred by political stabilization and thriving economies in many of the South American countries. Travelers are heading in both directions, some for business and others to visit relatives.

Latin America is also attracting tourists who are looking for something completely different.

“As more and more baby boomers mature, folks who have done Europe, the U.S., are looking at a place that they haven’t yet experienced,” said James Ashurst, spokesman for the American Society of Travel Agents in Alexandria, Va.

Forty percent of Continental’s added routes in the past two years have been to Latin America, said Peter Garcia, staff vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The passenger demand was always there, he said, but “what was missing was the economic development of these countries,” he said.

The airline now serves 14 cities in Mexico and Central America, and soon plans to add service to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The flights have been 70% full, 80% for the flights to Costa Rica, Garcia said.

As the competition for passengers heats up, the airlines are using an unusual marketing tool--excess baggage--to woo customers.

Because of the price differences between countries for clothes, electronics and other items, passengers have wanted to check extra luggage on their flights south. In addition, “When you go back home, you really must take a lot of gifts for everyone you know,” said Victoria DeBenedett, a Brazilian native and Continental agent.

So the airlines are competing by offering deals to take excess luggage on flights to Latin America. Delta is allowing passengers to take two extra checked bags, for a total of four bags, at no charge on some routes through Oct. 31. A $50 fee will be charged for each additional bag.

Continental is offering a promotion through Sept. 30 guaranteeing the delivery of unlimited excess baggage in three to five days on limited flights. (It is contracting with freight cargo companies to guarantee speedy delivery.)

Passengers had complained that extra bags took several days to arrive because the planes cannot carry all the passengers’ bags at one time, Garcia said.