LATAM Airlines operates in a part of the world that does not always receive the same attention as North America, Europe, or the Middle East when discussions turn to airline loyalty programs. Yet the airline group’s frequent flyer program, LATAM Pass, has quietly become one of the largest loyalty schemes anywhere in the aviation industry, reaching a scale that rivals programs operated by much larger global carriers.

The size of LATAM Pass often surprises observers. While many passengers outside Latin America may be familiar with major loyalty programs from airlines such as American Airlines, United Airlines, or Emirates, LATAM Pass has built a membership base that now stands among the largest in the world. The reasons behind that growth stretch far beyond flying itself and reflect broader trends across aviation, banking, retail partnerships, and the rapidly expanding Latin American travel market.

Loyalty Program With Global Membership

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The headline figure alone helps explain why LATAM Pass attracts so much attention. As of late 2024, the program reported approximately 48 million members, making it the seventh-largest Airline Loyalty Program in the world. For an airline group concentrated primarily in Latin America, that is a remarkable achievement.

Many airline loyalty programs benefit from operating in large domestic markets such as the US or China, where huge populations create a natural pool of potential members. LATAM, by contrast, serves a region spread across numerous countries, currencies, and regulatory environments, but has still managed to build a membership base that rivals those of airlines operating on a far larger global scale. As a result, LATAM Pass has become one of the most influential loyalty programs anywhere in commercial aviation, and its scale continues to expand alongside the airline group’s broader business strategy.

The program’s importance is also reflected in the way LATAM treats it as no longer just a supporting function attached to an airline. Instead, it is increasingly viewed as a major business unit that generates revenue, drives customer engagement, and shapes long-term customer relationships.

Benefiting From Latin America’s Aviation Boom

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Channing Reid

One of the biggest factors behind LATAM Pass’s growth is the strength of the market it serves. According to IATA, Latin America has become the fastest-growing aviation region in the world when measured by passenger capacity growth. That trend creates a steady stream of new travelers entering the market each year, and as more people fly for business, tourism, education, and family visits, airlines gain opportunities to introduce customers to loyalty programs that can encourage repeat travel.

LATAM occupies a particularly strong position within that environment, and the airline group operates major connecting hubs in Santiago de Chile (SCL), São Paulo (GRU), Lima (LIM), and Bogotá (BOG), giving it access to some of the region’s largest passenger flows. Travelers moving between countries in South America often find themselves flying on LATAM-operated routes, whether traveling domestically or internationally. As a result, a substantial portion of Latin America’s growing traveling population naturally encounters LATAM Pass during the booking process, and new members continue entering the ecosystem as the airline expands its reach and as overall passenger demand rises throughout the region.

Unlike carriers operating in mature aviation markets where customer growth may be limited, LATAM benefits from a region where aviation still has significant room for expansion. The growth of the airline itself, therefore, acts as a powerful engine supporting loyalty membership growth. LATAM currently operates a long-haul fleet of Boeing 787 and Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, while its narrowbody fleet is made up of Airbus A320 family aircraft. The carrier also has a number of Airbus A321XLRs on order.

Mergers Created A Larger Customer Base

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LATAM Pass did not emerge from a single airline operating independently. Part of its size can be traced directly to the consolidation that reshaped the Latin American airline industry over the past two decades. The modern LATAM Airlines Group was formed through the merger of Chile’s LAN Airlines and Brazil’s TAM Airlines in 2012. Each airline brought with it an existing customer base and established frequent flyer program, and combining those networks effectively brought together millions of loyalty members under a single corporate structure.

The impact of consolidation extended even further in Brazil, where LATAM eventually integrated LATAM Fidelidade with Multiplus, creating LATAM Pass Brazil. This development was particularly significant because Multiplus had evolved beyond a traditional airline frequent flyer program, and customers could earn rewards through a broad range of commercial activities that had little connection to aviation. By absorbing that membership base and integrating it into LATAM Pass, the airline inherited a much wider audience than a typical airline loyalty program might attract.

This consolidation strategy effectively accelerated membership growth, and rather than building every member relationship from scratch, LATAM combined multiple established elements into a single platform. The result was a loyalty program with a scale that reflected years of accumulated customer relationships across several major markets.

Earning Miles Without Flying

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Although aviation remains central to LATAM Pass, the largest explanation for its enormous membership is surprisingly simple – millions of members earn points without ever stepping onto an airplane. Modern loyalty programs increasingly function as broader consumer ecosystems rather than purely travel-focused rewards schemes, and LATAM Pass has embraced this model extensively. Members can accumulate miles through airline travel, but they can also earn rewards through banking relationships, retail purchases, and numerous commercial partnerships.

Co-branded credit cards, such as the LATAM Airlines Mastercard, play an especially important role. In some cases, customers can receive sign-up bonuses worth tens of thousands of miles, with certain offers reaching as high as 60,000 bonus miles. These incentives attract consumers who may have limited travel activity but still want access to rewards and redemption opportunities.

Retail partnerships further expand participation, and customers can collect miles through everyday spending habits, transforming ordinary purchases into loyalty-earning opportunities. This approach dramatically broadens the potential membership pool because participation is no longer restricted to frequent flyers.

That distinction is critical when evaluating LATAM Pass’s size. The program includes millions of consumers who may fly only occasionally, yet remain active participants because of banking products, shopping relationships, and other commercial partnerships. In many ways, the program functions as a consumer rewards ecosystem with aviation at its center rather than a traditional frequent flyer program. This model helps explain how a regional airline group can achieve membership figures comparable to much larger international competitors – the customer base extends far beyond travelers alone.

More Than Four Decades Of Loyalty Development

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Another important factor is time, and LATAM Pass did not reach its current scale overnight. The program’s roots stretch back more than 43 years, giving it decades to accumulate members across multiple generations of travelers. Longevity matters in the loyalty industry, and every year brings new enrollments while many existing members remain connected to the program, even if their travel patterns fluctuate. Over several decades, those additions create enormous cumulative growth.

LATAM has also consistently adapted the program as customer expectations evolved. Rather than relying solely on its historical success, the airline has continued refining the member experience and introducing new ways for customers to engage with the platform.

The result is a loyalty program that combines long-term brand recognition with ongoing modernization. Customers who joined decades ago can coexist within the same program as younger travelers who primarily interact through digital channels and mobile applications. That combination of maturity and adaptability has helped LATAM Pass maintain relevance across changing consumer habits, ensuring that membership growth continues rather than plateauing.

Turning Loyalty Into A Standalone Business

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In recent years, LATAM has increasingly treated LATAM Pass as a business in its own right rather than simply a marketing tool, and this shift has influenced both membership growth and customer engagement. The airline invested heavily in rebuilding and modernizing the LATAM Pass mobile application, creating a more seamless experience for members. Digital transformation efforts focused on improving usability while strengthening the program’s ability to interact with customers on a daily basis.

At the same time, LATAM began measuring performance through metrics specifically tied to loyalty, and the airline group has examined factors such as total membership, the percentage of active members, and the share of overall revenue connected to the program. These indicators demonstrate how central loyalty has become to the airline’s broader strategy. Additional enhancements have continued to strengthen engagement, and in 2025, LATAM introduced the LATAM Pass Bonus system, adding milestone-based rewards designed to encourage deeper participation and ongoing activity, and also recently unveiled its premium economy product. Such initiatives help keep existing members involved while making the program more attractive to potential new customers.

The importance of LATAM Pass was underscored earlier this month when LATAM Airlines Group CEO Roberto Alvo spoke with reporters during the IATA Annual General Meeting in Rio de Janeiro. Alvo highlighted the scale of engagement generated by the program.

“Every three seconds, a [LATAM] flight is booked with miles.”

That single statistic illustrates how deeply embedded the loyalty program has become within LATAM’s business model. While flying remains the visible face of the airline, the extraordinary size of LATAM Pass is largely the result of a broader coalition strategy, decades of accumulated membership, extensive partnerships, and a rapidly expanding home market. Together, those factors have transformed a regional airline loyalty scheme into one of the largest loyalty programs in global aviation.