In February, “a slowdown in the recovery path that had been taking place at the end of 2020 in the region was again evidenced”, at the level of air traffic. This is expressed by José Ricardo Botelho, head of the Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA), in his February report, released in the last hours.
The general movement of passengers in Latin America and the Caribbean decreased 55.7% in February.
The Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA) reported that airlines operating in the regional market transported 15.5 million passengers in February, 55.7% less than the previous year. This represents 19.5 million fewer passengers.
Traffic (RPK) decreased 66.4% and capacity (ASK) decreased 54.4%, bringing the load factor to 58.8%, 21.1 percentage points less than in 2020.
As a reference, in January 2021 the drop compared to January 2020 was 46.6%, while in February 2021 the drop reached 55.7% compared to February 2020.
“This represents the change in the trend that the months in which we were slowly approaching the levels of 2019 had been showing, towards a month with a greater drop than the immediately previous month,” indicates ALTA CEO José Ricardo Botelho.
The data supports the results of recent passenger surveys. International traffic has been the hardest hit with a fall of 66.7% in February, while domestic traffic reached a fall of 46.6%. Passengers have indicated that they will not travel if there is a possibility of quarantine. This has intensified with the reimpositions of measures in the region.
