Source: ALTA

  • Latin America and the Caribbean continues to be the world’s region with the fastest recovery from pre-pandemic levels

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) passenger traffic continues to recover faster than the rest of the regions, reaching 90.5% of its July 2019 levels, followed by Africa with 87% and North America with 85%.

For July 2022, in the international market, three countries in the region stand out as having surpassed the levels reached in 2019: Dominican Republic, which reached 116% compared to 2019, representing a 16% growth. Followed by Colombia (109%) and Mexico (106%).

ALTA’s Traffic Report shows that in the month of July 2022, 29.7 million passengers were transported in the region and, in the accumulated January-July, 183.9 million passengers, which represents 13% less than its 2019 levels.

Domestic air transport, not being impacted by international traffic restrictions, has recovered at a faster pace. By July 2022 Mexico reached 106%, Brazil reached 90%. Of the total passengers carried in July, domestic passengers accounted for 68.7%.

“Colombia achieved an outstanding recovery in the first half of the year with 26% growth versus its 2019 levels. Brazil continues to improve, reaching 90% of its 2019 levels. The continued removal of restrictions on international traffic has been critical to achieving this. Looking to the future, we know that the population will continue to require air transport, however, to make it truly possible for more people to use this means of transportation, we need to continue reducing costs associated with fees and taxes, as well as continue optimizing regulations that generate inefficiencies,” says José Ricardo Botelho, executive director and CEO of the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA).

In terms of relative capacity, this means chairs per kilometer (ASK), domestic is observed to be 2.9 above its 2019 levels. The occupancy factor reached 83.3%, 4.4 points below 2019. Domestic was 81.8% while intra-LAC was 78.8% and extra-LAC was 85.5%.

ALTA’s Traffic Report is available here: https://bit.ly/3eZTxpb.