TAM Airlines, the Brazilian carrier that is part of the LATAM Airlines Group, will launch a new daily non-stop service between Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, on 15 November 2012. An Airbus A320 will be used on the new route offering 12 Business Class seats and 144 in Economy. The daily flight leaves early morning from Rio de Janeiro to Montevideo, with an early evening departure from Montevideo to Rio de Janeiro. TAM also operates a third daily non-stop frequency to-and-from São Paulo’s international airport (Guarulhos) to Montevideo as of 25 October.

The newest Latin American Star Alliance airline members are posting strong results in the first three quarters of 2012. Avianca TACA Holding carriers Avianca and TACA Airlines carried more than 17 million passengers in the first nine months of 2012, a 13.7 percent increase compared with the same period in 2011.

American Airlines announced that it will launch service to markets in Latin America, delivering on the airline's business plan and network strategy designed to offer customers more choices to new destinations. Next year, American will begin the service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Peru’s Lima.

With its tourism industry already hurting due to limited air and sea access into the island, Montserrat has suffered a further setback in getting more travellers to the island with the official grounding of FlyMontserrat. The airworthiness surveyor is to travel to Anguilla, where FlyMontserrat’s aircraft are serviced.

LIAT’s newly-appointed Chief Executive Officer, Captain Ian Brunton has described thirty-five percent of the airline’s 112 daily flights as “social (uneconomic) routes”. “LIAT cannot continue to meet the cost of these social routes,” Brunton told the CTO state of the industry conference in St. Kitts last week.