Court accepts LATAM rescue-plan extension to mid-4Q21

LATAM Airlines Group has reported that the extension it requested until November 26 to present its restructuring plan to the US Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York, as part of its ongoing Chapter 11 proceedings, has been accepted.

The request, it said in a statement issued on October 28, “enables continued progress in the negotiations with interested parties for the purpose of agreeing on the financial terms and submitting its Plan of Reorganisation for approval,” which “will allow the group to successfully emerge from the Chapter 11 process in compliance with the applicable legislation in both the United States and Chile, considering the preemptive subscription rights of shareholders in Chile.”

The bankrupt company had told the court during a virtual hearing on the same date that it had reached agreement with unsecured creditors to gain another month of exclusive rights to file a Chapter 11 plan, court documents showed. The group’s lawyers claimed it had been making progress towards a planned restructuring in recent weeks but had not yet arrived at an agreeable proposal.

The Chile-based group and its various affiliate companies in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and the United States have been under voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since May 2020, due, the group has said, to the “serious consequences” of the Covid-19 pandemic.

LATAM stressed in its latest statement that it would continue to participate in this process “with the conviction that its success and the consensus of all participants will allow the group to be in a position to propose” a restructuring plan that can be presented to the New York court and, subsequently, be submitted for both creditor and shareholder approval.

Meanwhile, Chile’s Tribunal for the Defense of Free Competition has approved an agreement reached between Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson), LATAM Airlines Group, and the Chilean National Economic Prosecutor’s Office. The court’s agreement and decision will allow, among other things, the implementation of Delta and LATAM’s commercial agreement subject to the mitigation measures offered by the parties. However, the regulatory approval process with the US Department of Transportation (DOT) is still ongoing.