Ladeco board. The aircraft was operating a domestic scheduled passenger flight from Los Cerrillos Airport, Santiago. Ladeco Ladeco was a Chilean airline; Ladeco is the acronym of "Línea Aérea Del Cobre" or the "Airline of Copper," in reference to the principal Chilean export. Ladeco began operations in 1958 flying mostly internal routes between Chile's major cities and some international routes, and continued to run services until 1994 when LanChile (currently called Latam Chile) bought over 99% of the shares and merged Ladeco into its fleet. At the time of takeover, Ladeco was equipped mainly with Boeing 737 aircraft as well as
Regional airline equipment, brought the independent regional airlines into direct competition with the major airlines, forcing additional consolidation. To improve on their market penetration, larger airline holding companies rely on operators of smaller aircraft to provide service or added frequency service to some airports. Such airlines, often operating in code-share arrangements with mainline airlines, often completely repaint their aircraft fleet in the mainline airline's sub-brand livery. For example, United Express regional airline partner CommutAir branded its entire fleet as United Express. On the other hand, regional airline Gulfstream International Airlines does not brand their aircraft. When Colgan Air was still operating, they