MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

LATAM Airlines plans to be 46% operational by the end of July

All projections are subject to travel restrictions where Latam operates

The Latam Airlines Group Monday forecast that by the end of July 2021 it would be carrying 46% of the total number of passengers in pre-pandemic times.

The announcement is significant progress from June figures when it reached 36.9%.

The company sees the main challenges in the reactivation of markets such as Chile and Ecuador, which have the lowest records compared to the rest of the countries where the group operates.

Latam foresees approximately 880 daily domestic and international flights during July, connecting 116 destinations in 16 countries. Meanwhile, the Cargo division has scheduled 1,030 flights in cargo planes during the period, 20% more than in the same month of 2019.

All these projections are subject to the evolution of the pandemic as well as travel restrictions in the countries where Latam operates.

During June 2021, passenger traffic was 32.1% concerning the same period of 2019, based on an operation measured in ASK (available seats-kilometres) of 36.9% compared to June 2019. This implied that the load factor decreased 10.8 percentage points, reaching 72.2%. In cargo, the load factor was 62.8%, which corresponds to an increase of 7.7 percentage points concerning June 2019.

In the case of Peru, the projected operation for July 2021 is 45%. Of this percentage, 66% corresponds to domestic flights and 38% to international ones. In total, Latam offers 19 domestic destinations for this month, equivalent to 126 daily flights on average. In addition, it offers 17 international destinations. Starting this month, Latam also offers its new Arequipa-Cusco route, in addition to the restart of the Lima-Madrid and Lima-Orlando services.