Talk:Austral Líneas Aéreas

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[edit] Sorting out Astral, Aerolíneas Argentinas and Cielos del Sur

I am having difficulty understanding the intertwined relationships and history of Austral, Cielos del Sur and Aerolíneas Argentinas.

If I understand the history correctly, Austral was absorbed by Aerolineas, but then sold to Cielos del Sur -- but still functioning as if it were part of Aerolíneas Argentinas? Austral and Aerolíneas Argentinas have the same website, but different IATA codes?

Is the proper name for the airline Austral-Cielos del Sur, or just Austral? Is (or was) Cielos del Sur a stand-alone airline at one point? IATA seems to be listing Cielos del Sur as having the designator code AU, which would suggest it was Austral's code originally... help! I'm really confused. Kevyn 08:23, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

As I understand it, Cielos del Sur SA was once the owner of Austral (sort of Cielos del Sur was the company name and Austral was the brand). There was always a relationship between Austral and Aerolineas Argentinas, but that relationship is not very clear to me, specially in the pre-privatization era. I think that, while Aerolíneas Argentinas was a state company, Cielos del Sur SA was a state-owned incorporated company (which is not legally the same thing).

However, Areolíneas Argentinas and Austral worked like two isolated companies for a lot of years, and they still do in many ways.

When Iberia bought Aerolíneas Argentinas, it bought Austral too. But they were kept as two sepatarate companies. Then they started to unify some areas, mainly human resources and marketing.

Then Marsans bought both Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral, which is the current state. The inegration continued, mainly in the commercial areas and now with some corporative departments like quality assurance. The main technical and operative areas such as flight operations, mintainnance, quality control and enginnering remain independent.

I know some things from inside sources. There are cultural issues because Aerolínas Argentinas has a very long history as a state company that would not give profits and would take money from the state's budget, while Austral is much more young and was born as an incorporated (while state owned) who had to live from its own budget. Austral as a much more flat structure and more lean approach. There are fewer people in Austral (comparatively with the size of the operations) but they typically earn more than the comparable possition in Aerolíneas. Now things have changed, but Austral was used to be less strict in favor of flexibility, what can be reflected in the safety record: Aerolíneas, with more years of history and a larger operation and covering both the domestic and the international markets, has only one fatal and early accident in the jet era (I think it was a Comet or a Caravel) (an excelent record considering that it was the first Southamerican airline to operate jets). Austral, which was born well within the jet era and has a much smaller opperation, had at least four that I can remember now. As I said, things have changed now (no serious airline plays with safety as a variable anymore) and Austral hasn't had a fatal accident in more than 10 years now.

Hope it helped somehow. Still a lot of research to do if someone wants to fix the article. 168.226.230.70 03:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC) Gabriel

[edit] The fleet is wrong

The fleet shown in this article as per today is the combined domestic fleet of Arolíneas Argentinas AND Austral. Check the Austral or the Aerolíneas Argeninas web page (which is the same except for the URL!) 168.226.230.70 03:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC) Gabriel

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 15:23, 29 August 2007 (UTC)