Latin America and the Caribbean closed 2021 as the region with the best load factor

According to the traffic report presented today by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), during 2021 Latin America and the Caribbean was the region with the best load factor, also leading, together with North America, the performance in recovery.

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Globally, Latin America accounted for 6.5% of overall traffic and 2.1% of international traffic.

In 2021, demand (measured in RPK) in Latin America and the Caribbean fell by 47.7%, ranking second only to North America, where the drop was 39%.

Capacity (ASK) in Latin American and Caribbean countries was 43.9% lower, resulting in a negative variation of only 5.2 percentage points in the occupancy factor, which stood at 77.3%, the highest among all regions worldwide, followed by North America with 73.8% and Europe with 68.6%.

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See also: IATA: global passenger traffic recovered 42% in 2021 compared to 2019

Looking at the international segment, Latin American airlines recorded a 66.9% drop in passenger traffic, while capacity fell 62.2%, resulting in an occupancy factor of 72.6% (-10.2 pp), also the highest among the regions.

Does Latin American political change pose a threat to air transport?

In recent years, governments in several key Latin American markets have made a leftward shift, such as Mexico, Argentina, Peru, and, more recently, Chile.

When asked by Aviacionline whether this could provoke a wave of protectionism on air transport that would limit its development in the region, Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director-General, said that «political changes whether to the left or to the right can have an impact», but that it does not depend «necessarily on the direction of governments but on the approach they will take in relation to aviation, transport and the economy in general».

«We have dealt with this before and I don’t think it represents anything that is significantly different to what we have experienced in the past; we have managed and lived through political changes before and I would expect that we will be able to handle them efficiently in the future,» the executive concluded.

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