Iberia Airlines on Wednesday here said that, as it celebrates 70 years of operations in Latin America, it is a company in the process of "renovation and reinvention" after having reversed its millions of dollars in annual losses over the past few years and with its leadership in on-time flight arrivals and departures as one of its secret weapons. "For us, Latin America has always been our raison d'etre, although we have a vocation as a global airline," emphasized Iberia president Luis Gallego during his address, remarking that the firm does the greater part of its business in the region. "The truth is that either we had to change the company radically or this firm would have disappeared," he said. Currently, Iberia, which leads the airline industry in traffic between Latin America and Europe with 250 weekly flights, has 16,500 employees, a figure lower than before its restructuring, when there were 20,500 people on the payroll. In 2015, Iberia was the second-most-punctual airline in the world and was ranked as the most punctual in Europe, and today its 136 aircraft offer 600 daily flights to 125 destinations.

Source: Fox News September 21, 2016 20:48 UTC