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TAM Honored with Airbus's Operational Excellence in Latin America Award

Dépèche transmise le 8 mai 2009 par PRNewswire

SAO PAULO, May 8 /PRNewswire/ -- TAM received the Airbus Operational Excellence Award for the A320 family in recognition of its service history with single-aisle aircraft. The awards ceremony took place this week in Paris during a symposium Airbus hosts every two years for all A320 family operators worldwide. This is the fourth consecutive time TAM has won this biennial award. The previous times were in 2003, 2005 and 2007.

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"It is with great satisfaction that we have once more received recognition from Airbus for our work with the A320 aircraft. This is the direct result of our day-to-day efforts striving for Technical-Operational Excellence, one of the pillars of our business," stated Commander David Barioni Neto, President of TAM.

In total, nine awards were given to operators of the various types of aircraft in the A320 family. TAM was one of two operators being recognized for its exceptional technical reliability with the entire A320 family.

The awards selection criteria are based on two years of operational data and take into consideration the number of aircraft in the company's fleet, the daily usage rate, technical reliability and the number of flight delays due to operational circumstances.

"TAM has established a highly efficient Airbus aircraft operation, with very high daily usage rates and incredible operational reliability," said Charles Champion, Executive Vice President of Client Services, Airbus.

TAM is the largest Airbus A320 family client in Latin America. Currently, our operational fleet is composed of 132 aircraft altogether, with 125 Airbus models (20 A319's, 82 A320's, 5 A321's, 16 A330's and two A340's), and four Boeing 777-300ER's, as well as three B767-600's.

The A320 family is widely recognized as a benchmark among single-aisle aircraft. More than 6,300 of these aircraft have already been sold, and more than 3,700 have already been delivered to nearly 280 clients and operators around the world.

CONTACT: Libano Miranda Barroso, TAM Investor Relations, +55-11-5582-9715,fax, +55-11-5582-8149, . Photo: NewsCom:http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080221/SPTH002LOGO