Chicago's cargo side is adding service from South America with LATAM Airlines Cargo. The 767-300F flights operate via MIA.

More info on the LATAM cargo route added to ORD. I hope this leads to passenger service. Some of the flights are served by LATAM and others by LAN Chile Airlines(both owned by the same holding company). A good produce flight direct from S.A. via a fuel stop in MIA and also direct from Chile. Chicago is really weak when it comes to South American routes so this is good news.


https://www.aviationpros.com/airline...campinas-route

i just saw that AA is planning to start a seasonal nonstop route from ohare to Athens in may.

does anyone know if ORD has ever had nonstop service to greece before?

Nice! That's next years vacation, hopefully!

Olympic Airlines used to come to ORD with 747 service, but I think it had a fuel stop westbound.

No, they had nonstop flight from ATH to ORD, but there is no one-stop.

I looked back through and didn't see this, I just realized it yesterday. WOW Airlines has stopped their Chicago to Iceland route.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...115-story.html

I loved that option, my husband and I used it many times in those two short years they were in Chicago. It was hard to pass up their $200 roundtrip prices to the main cities in Europe. They would constantly have sales, and it was fun when they did, we scored a $198 roundtrip to Amsterdam for a 4 night stay. Got a $98 roundtrip price on a trip to Iceland last summer. If you have the time off it's hard to pass up those prices.

Had a lot of friends who jumped on board with them as well, they were always telling us about getting to Ireland, Berlin or London for less than $300 roundtrip.

^ not surprisingly, WOW's super-low fares to europe were apparently unsustainable.

in addition to ORD, they also pulled out of los angeles, san francisco, cleveland, cincinnati, pittsburgh, st. louis, dallas, miami, and orlando in a major retreat from their US expansion.

their lone remainign US routes are now detroit, boston, newark, and baltimore.

Well yeah, when I was buying $99 one-way trips to Amsterdam I figured this is far too good to last - so we took advantage. I kept telling friends and coworkers to take advantage of these flights while they were around!

WOW had several of their aircraft repossessed so they were unable to continue a full schedule. Icelandair might end up saving them with a takeover.

Do you think this is a lack of demand, or because Chicago benefits from good "great circle" routes to anywhere in the northern hemisphere which just doesn't work out for it for the southern hemisphere? Or a combination of both?

Lowish demand and the lack of an appropriately sized aircraft with the range/capability to handle the high and hot airports of South America profitably.

Maybe the A321LRs will make some routes viable.

few US cities have good nonstop service to SA, and those that do are along or near the southern coast/border of the country, with the obvious exception of NYC.

# of nonstop SA destinations*:

miami: 26
ft. lauderdale: 11
new york: 11
orlando: 11
atlanta: 8
houston: 7
dallas: 5
los angeles: 5
boston: 2
chicago: 2
DC: 2
detroit: 1
las vegas: 1


(*) i'm not including any routes to central america (panama and north) or any routes to aruba, trinidad, or other carribean island destinations near SA, just the mainland of the continent itself.

Once again shows how pitiful Chicago's international marketing is.

We could have huge numbers of South Americans, Caribbeans, etc filling up our dying and half vacant south side neighborhoods, but "nah, lets just focus on Iowa and Wisconsin" :rolleyes:

Meanwhile, New York sops them up like they're selling hotcakes, while we have MUCH cheaper rents and plenty of service jobs

That's not how any of this works. . .

. . .

http://i.imgflip.com/ur7ip.jpg
_

Had to...

Are you fucking kidding me? :koko:

Ok cool, let’s just let a huge part of the city rot to oblivion then, because you decided that an obvious solution that works for the rest of the developed world just isn’t in the cards for provincial old Chicago.

are you suggesting that having fewer nonstop flights to SA prevents south americans from immigrating here?

No, just that the very low number of flights indicates low demand, and it’s something we need to fix. South American and island immigrants are coming to the US. They just aren’t coming to Chicago.

And if you can think of a another group of people who will fill in these south side neighborhoods that are emptying out, please share that with me.

Pretty much nobody in Chicago leadership is talking about the need to boost immigration. Anyhow, I realize this discussion belongs in another thread...

WOW were complete d*cks about leaving STL and more or less blamed the city, which was bunk based on the passenger levels. They acted as if STL was a huge exception and every other airport was great.