ORD, Next to MIA Becomes LATAM Cargo’s Key U.S. Gateway

Last week, LATAM Cargo started their announced Chicago offensive, offering the market in the Midwest four weekly freighter flights from and to Brazil and Chile. The new ORD flights make intra-U.S. road feeder services between the Great Lakes region and LATAM Cargo’s Miami gateway dispensable, considerably reducing transit times both ways. 

Chicago is LATAM Cargo’s first new destination added to the carrier’s intra-continental network in 2019, with more routes following in the course of this year, hints their management. Considering both the cargo transported onboard freighters and passenger aircraft, Chicago becomes the airline’s seventh gateway to the U.S., together with Miami, Orlando, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Huntsville. This ups the routes to 34 operated by LATAM between North and South America.

B767-300P2F can uplift 50 tons per flight
The inaugural freighter flight took off from ORD last Wednesday, heading to Campinas (Viracopos) near Sao Paulo, Brazil. After landing, shipments destined to Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile were immediately transferred on board commuting LATAM aircraft serving those routes, cutting transit times considerably. This is seen by the fact that prior to the ORD flights, it took more than two days to truck cargo from Chicago to Miami, the carrier’s main gateway in the U.S., from where the Latin America destined shipments were flown out.

Chile’s aquaculture industry benefits from SCL-ORD flights
These services are complemented by bi-weekly B767 freighter flights on weekdays 2 and 6 respectively, operated on the sector Santiago de Chile-Chicago, also launched last week. They were in high demand by the Chilean aquaculture industry and their salmon producer’s group because the direct services cut down transit times considerably compared to routing the shipments via Miami as previously was the case.

ORD is ideal connecting point to Far East
It’s no real surprise that Commissioner Jamie Rhee of Chicago’s Aviation Department, who took over responsibilities from her predecessor Ginger Evans last July, welcomed the LATAM Cargo services to her city: “Each new flight added to O’Hare enhances our leading connectivity, creating new jobs and opportunity for residents, and fueling economic impact throughout our City. Supported by our continued investments in our state of the art cargo campus, we are committed to increasing access for worldwide businesses to move goods in and out of Chicago through O’Hare.”
LATAM Cargo CEO Andrés Bianchi added to this: “Chicago is a key gateway in the United States and an ideal connecting point to Asia. Our new flights to and from the city provide our customers with access to key destinations and improved connectivity between the region and the world.”

Heiner Siegmund