Latin American airline group LAN has reported a significant improvement in its third quarter earnings following a surprisingly weak second quarter. Latin America’s buoyant economy drove the strong showing and has LAN confident it can remain highly profitable in 4Q2011 and 2012 despite the challenging global market conditions. LAN’s planned merger with Brazil’s TAM, which will now almost certainly be completed in Mar-2012, further improves the group’s medium to long-term outlook as LAN gains access to Brazil, the region’s largest economy by a wide margin and one of the world’s largest emerging markets.