ALTA Member Airlines Passenger Traffic More than Doubles in Less than Ten Years

Miami, February 14, 2013 – The Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA) announced that its member airlines carried 150.5 million passengers in 2012, up 7.6% from the previous year.

Traffic (RPK) grew 8.2% and capacity (ASK) increased 6.0%, bringing up the load factor to 76.5%, 1.6 percentage points higher than in 2011.

The number of passengers first reported by ALTA for the year ended 2004 showed 66 million passengers were transported by Latin American & Caribbean carriers. At the end of 2012, the number of passengers reported is a little over 150 million, more than doubling the figure in less than 10 years.

ALTA´s Executive Director, Alex de Gunten, commented, “We reached a major milestone in the region surpassing 150 million passengers flown by ALTA carriers. The figures demonstrate that Aviation in our Region has been on the right track: In less than 10 years Latin America and the Caribbean carriers have reported a growth of more than twice in the number of passengers transported. Furthermore, for the year ended 2012 we have seen an RPK growth of 8.2%, second fastest region in the world behind the Middle East carriers. The industry supports over 5 million jobs and contributes over USD125 billion to the Latin America and Caribbean´s GDP. We must continue our focus on overcoming and/or eliminating the barriers that will undermine our continued progress: promoting the re-investment in infrastructure and continuously improving efficiency and safety of the industry in the region.”

The number of passengers carried during December 2012 increased 8.4% versus the same month of the previous year, reaching 13.6 million passengers. In that month, traffic (RPK) rose 7.8%, capacity (ASK) increased 4.4%, and the passenger load factor reached 76.3%, 2.4 percentage points higher than December 2011.

Freight ton kilometers declined 1.6% in 2012 but increased 6.5% in December.