Latin America budget airline competition to intensify

Subject The expansion of low-cost airlines in Latin America. Significance In late October, the first tickets for flights with Wingo -- a new no-frills carrier running routes between Colombia, Central America and the Caribbean -- went on sale. The new Colombia-based company is competing directly against several traditional and budget airlines for a share of the growing market for domestic and international air travel within the region. Wingo's creation, together with that of Viva Air Peru in November, highlights the continued disruption to a sector long dominated by a small number of high-cost carriers. Impacts Greater availability of reasonably priced international flights will boost Latin American tourism to the Caribbean. Cheap air travel may also help expand and consolidate regional trade ties, reducing the cost of business trips. Increased flight frequency and passenger numbers will help regional airports which have often operated below capacity.

Subject The outlook for unemployment in Latin America. Significance Unemployment in the region will rise this year for the first time since 2009, according to an October report by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO). There are also signs of deterioration in job quality and that households are beginning to feel the pinch of slower GDP growth. Impacts In Brazil, the number of wage earners fell in absolute terms in the first half of 2015, a trend that is accelerating. In a typical feature of economic slowdowns, the number of women seeking jobs will continue to increase sharply. An already large productivity gap between micro and larger businesses is likely to widen.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Lucia Silva Santos ◽  
Andrea Valéria Steil ◽  
David Joaquin Delgado-Hernández

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to summarize the main methods and themes used on organizational learning (OL) and learning organization (LO) research in Latin American and the Caribbean. Design/methodology/approach A literature review was conducted by means of a broad and systematic strategy to locating, selecting and analyzing papers on OL/LO, written in different languages (English, Portuguese and Spanish). Systematic searches were carried out at the two databases (Web of Science’s Social Sciences Citation Index and Scopus), and 15 specific Latin American and Caribbean journals were identified as data sources for the review. A thematic analysis was carried out using NVivo and cluster analysis. Findings In all 79 papers published between 2000 and 2017 were included in the synthesis and results: 18 are theoretical papers and literature reviews and 61 are empirical papers (30 qualitative, 24 quantitative and 7 multiple methods). These empirical papers revealed the study of the OL/LO concepts in organizations located mainly in Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico and Costa Rica. Five topics represent the main themes addressed on OL/LO studies in Latin America and the Caribbean and are avenues for future research in the field: (i) knowledge and KM (i.e. knowledge management), (ii) culture and leadership, (iii) innovation and improvement, (iv) learning (for example, learning process, learning styles), and (v) entrepreneurship and sustainability. Originality/value This paper provides a summary of the research methods and themes used in the OL/LO field in Latin America and the Caribbean, suggesting insights for future research.


Subject Internet penetration in Latin America. Significance The number of households connected to the internet in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has more than doubled over the past five years while the cost of access has dropped sharply, according to a report released by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on September 12. However, connection speeds remain low by international standards and there are wide geographic and socioeconomic differences in access. Impacts Government efforts will be required to narrow income-related gaps in internet access, particularly in poorer countries. A key challenge for LAC is to raise mobile internet speeds to levels that permit greater use of services and applications. The Brazilian economy's contraction is likely to slow the growth of e-commerce in this key market.


Significance Claver-Carone, a Cuban-American, could alter perceptions of the Bank’s traditional technical role in the region; his appointment is likely intended as a response to growing Chinese influence in Latin America. Impacts Washington aims to check the possibility of rising Chinese influence on the Bank’s activities, although Beijing remains a minor shareholder. Brazil’s support for Washington’s agenda risks roiling China, its main export market and investment source. The IDB will position itself as a major potential lender to Venezuela in the event of regime change there. The smaller economies of Central America and the Caribbean will remain particularly dependent on IDB lending.


Subject Declining regional growth projections. Significance According to a report issued on December 17 by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the region's GDP contracted by 0.4% this year, slowing for a fifth consecutive year, and will grow by a mere 0.2% in 2016. Impacts Brazil's forecast 2.0% contraction next year partly reflects, and will contribute to, the country's political crisis. ECLAC's 0.8% growth forecast for Argentina depends on the new government's success in reactivating investment. If private consumption and investment continue to contract, the region's labour markets will weaken again next year.


Significance Latin America has a younger aircraft fleet than the world average. Nevertheless, Airbus and Boeing are predicting a requirement for between 2,500 and 3,000 new aircraft to cope with growing demand for air travel in the region over the next 20 years. Reflecting the expansion of low-cost carrier (LCC) operations, the bulk of the new orders will be for single-aisle aircraft. Impacts Most growth will come from the region’s expanding budget sector. New no-frills airlines will force many existing carriers to offer similar options or set up LCC subsidiaries. Bullish prospects for LCC growth will attract inward investment to domestic airlines.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Casanova ◽  
Le Xia ◽  
Romina Ferreira

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to deploy an export dependency index to identify the sectors and countries in Latin America which are most exposed to fluctuations in Chinese demand. Bilateral trade between China and Latin America has grown very quickly in the past decade. As a consequence, economic relationships with Latin America intensified tremendously, as growing demand for resources drove China into relatively unexplored frontiers. Design/methodology/approach The Index measures the relative exposure of Latin American exporters to shifts in demand from China and is scaled from 0 to 1 (the higher the score, the more exposed an exporter is to disruptions of trade with China). The authors undertook the analysis using six-digit trade figures from the United Nations COMTRADE database (Harmonized System 2007 nomenclature) to ensure granularity and consistency and contrasted their results across two points in time, 2008 and 2014. The analysis was very comprehensive, covering the products that accounted for 80 per cent or more of all exports to China in 2014, for all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Findings According to our estimates, dependency on China increased overboard across Latin America for all countries and all sectors between 2008 and 2014. Absolute dependency levels were highest in Costa Rica, Colombia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, Peru, Chile, Guyana and Argentina. Of these, the largest exporters to China, namely, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, featured high dependencies concentrated around just four commodities: soy in the form of soybeans and soybean oil; crude oil; copper in the form of copper ore, copper cathodes and unrefined copper; and iron ore. These four commodities accounted for 80 per cent of the regions’ total exports to China. Originality/value This is one of few studies that look into Latin America’s commodity export dependency on China at such granular level.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 412-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Tanco ◽  
Matias Escuder ◽  
Gerardo Heckmann ◽  
Daniel Jurburg ◽  
Josue Velazquez

PurposeFor the past 20 years, Latin American countries have gone from being a low-cost region to significant players in the world economy, with five of its countries ranked among the world’s 50th largest by gross domestic product. This paper aims to study the contribution of Latin American researchers in the field of supply chain management (SCM) to aid an understanding of the Latin American impact within global supply chains (SCs).Design/methodology/approachThe authors present a study which includes a bibliometric analysis of the papers authored by Latin American researchers in the SCM field and which were exclusively published in journals included in the Journal Citation Reports. In addition, the authors conducted a survey to Latin American researchers and consultants to gain greater understanding of the main difficulties, which in their opinion, have negatively affected the SCM area in Latin America within the past five years, and identify possible misalignment between Latin American research and the challenges for SC in the region.FindingsThe results show that Latin American research on SCM in the past nine years is not significant for the field considering the number of papers, citations and the papers published in top journals. Another interesting finding is the lack of collaboration among researchers from different Latin American countries, as well as with corporate. Finally, survey results reveal significant differences regarding the main difficulties each country perceived as relevant.Practical implicationsComparing results from both analyses, relevant misalignments stand out between published research and the main difficulties detected. These suggest a challenging opportunity for Latin America, emphasizing the need to increase research contribution of the scientific community, through collaboration and alignment toward overcoming the most troublesome difficulties for Latin America. Therefore, the authors suggest future regional research directions which could also help global companies to tackle the challenges faced and optimize performance of their Latin American SCs.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous research on the quality and impact of Latin American research in SCM has been conducted. Also, misalignments between researchers and practitioners in the region, which allow identifying weaknesses of Latin American SCs, have not been studied before.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josef S. Herzog ◽  
Yanin Chavarri-Guerra ◽  
Danielle Castillo ◽  
Julio Abugattas ◽  
Cynthia Villarreal-Garza ◽  
...  

AbstractThe prevalence and contribution of BRCA1/2 (BRCA) pathogenic variants (PVs) to the cancer burden in Latin America are not well understood. This study aims to address this disparity. BRCA analyses were performed on prospectively enrolled Latin American Clinical Cancer Genomics Community Research Network participants via a combination of methods: a Hispanic Mutation Panel (HISPANEL) on MassARRAY; semiconductor sequencing; and copy number variant (CNV) detection. BRCA PV probability was calculated using BRCAPRO. Among 1,627 participants (95.2% with cancer), we detected 236 (14.5%) BRCA PVs; 160 BRCA1 (31% CNVs); 76 BRCA2 PV frequency varied by country: 26% Brazil, 9% Colombia, 13% Peru, and 17% Mexico. Recurrent PVs (seen ≥3 times), some region-specific, represented 42.8% (101/236) of PVs. There was no ClinVar entry for 14% (17/125) of unique PVs, and 57% (111/196) of unique VUS. The area under the ROC curve for BRCAPRO was 0.76. In summary, we implemented a low-cost BRCA testing strategy and documented a significant burden of non-ClinVar reported BRCA PVs among Latin Americans. There are recurrent, population-specific PVs and CNVs, and we note that the BRCAPRO mutation probability model performs adequately. This study helps address the gap in our understanding of BRCA-associated cancer in Latin America.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document