Latin America shows promising signs of recovery

The aviation market has overcome many crises but the COVID-19 has certainly been deeper and stronger, and is a challenge for the whole aviation industry. But interestingly, the 2020 traffic drop is not linked to major changes in the socio-economic drivers of demand but more the temporary results from regulatory constraints. With vaccines being increasingly deployed, short term perspectives are getting more optimistic, even at international level.

In Latin America, airlines have had to adapt to the situation. While major airlines are facing deep restructuring, Mexican low cost carriers for example have captured further domestic markets, which exceptionally never stopped. By recovering their fleet at a fast pace and continuing their fleet growth around the efficient Airbus Single-Aisle Family, they strongly position themselves when pre-COVID levels will be reached.

In other countries, startup airlines have also seen the left markets as an opportunity to start and grow rapidly. In Colombia, UltraAir recently announced its willingness to incorporate up to 40 A320s within the next five years while in Brazil, the startup airline ITAPEMIRIM received its AOC and is about to start operations with the same aircraft.

Other carriers have explored new sources of revenue by deploying “preighters”, a neologism to define “passenger aircraft converted in temporary freighters”, for which Airbus announced a joint solution with Lufthansa Technik. The solution comes as a result of an increasing demand in air freight while in the meantime the belly capacity of passenger flights dropped dramatically due to the travel restrictions.

Cargo operators have seen opportunities to grow their market with freighter aircraft. The most relevant example in Latin America is MAS Air, a Mexican carrier which announced its intention to more than double its existing fleet by selecting the A330-200P2F and the A330-300P2F, the Passenger-to-Freighter conversion of the A330 Family. The carrier will become the first A330P2F operator in the Americas and will benefit from greater payload-range capability than any other aircraft type in that category.

For more information, please contact:

Damien Sternchuss

Head of Marketing – Airbus Latin America and the Caribbean