MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

LAN’s passenger traffic up 20% in April; cargo down 25.4%

Chile's leading airline LAN reported this week its passenger traffic rose 19.9% in April, compared with a year earlier, but cargo traffic decreased by 25.4% as Latinamerican trade slowed due to the global economic crisis.

International passenger traffic rose 13.1% during the month, compared with the year-ago month. But domestic passenger traffic in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, went up by 39.9%, which the company said was due to low fares it offers in Chile and Peru and to new domestic service in Ecuador.

In the first four months of the year domestic passenger traffic increased 32.2% over the same period a year ago and international traffic, 4.1%.

LAN accounts for more than one half of Chile's international passenger traffic and nearly three quarters of its domestic traffic.

The Chilean flag carrier, which recently begun cargo operations in Colombia and Brazil said that the overall cargo market dropped 25.4% in April mainly because of a slowdown in economic activity and trade in the region. In the first four months cargo traffic fell 23.4%.

Earlier in the year LAN announced it expected its passenger traffic to grow by 10% and cargo traffic to fall by 5% in 2009.