LATAM Airlines

LATAM Airlines is the largest airline group in Latin America, formed from the 2012 merger of Chile's LAN and Brazil's TAM and running separate operating airlines in Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru. Its network hangs off hubs at Santiago, São Paulo Guarulhos, Lima and Bogotá, flown by Airbus A320-family narrowbodies and Boeing 787s and 777s. It left oneworld in 2020 and now partners closely with Delta, and it emerged from Chapter 11 restructuring as one of the region's strongest carriers.

Flying for LATAM

LATAM has no fully sponsored zero-hours cadet scheme. Its pilots fund their own initial licences and build hours elsewhere — instructing, general aviation, regional operators — before applying to one of the group's national airlines, each of which recruits separately under its own regulator's licensing rules. The Brazilian operation gives a good sense of the bar: a Brazilian licence and medical, an age limit around 35, and a minimum of 1,000 hours total time for candidates with a degree or 1,500 without. Because the group's airlines hire under different national frameworks, the route in depends heavily on which country a candidate is licensed in.

Selection for a group of this size follows a conventional shape — aptitude and psychometric testing, technical and English-language evaluation, simulator screening and interviews — with English proficiency carrying real weight on a network this international. LATAM publishes no test provider. What is worth understanding about a self-funded pathway is that a candidate arrives at the assessment having already spent years and a great deal of money on hours, with the computer-based stage as the last thing standing between them and the job. That is precisely the stage that repays being trained rather than turned up to.