Air traffic in Latin America and the Caribbean grew 6.6% in February

This represents a year-on-year increase of 6.6% compared to February 2025, equivalent to 2.44 million additional passengers. This growth was higher than that observed in January, which was 6.2%. Total flight capacity increased by 3.4% year-on-year, while seat capacity grew by 4.3%.

Summary of indicators:

Capacity, measured in available seat kilometers (ASK), grew 5.8% year-over-year.
Demand, measured in revenue passenger kilometers (RPK), increased 8.8% year-over-year.
The average load factor was 85.3%.

Air traffic in February 2026: main results:

Regional air traffic reached 39.4 million passengers in February.
Of the total, 52.8% were domestic passengers and 47.2% were international passengers. Within international traffic, 27% was intraregional (between countries in Latin America and the Caribbean) and 73% was extraregional.

Growth was concentrated in traffic within the region.
Two out of every three additional passengers traveled on domestic or intraregional routes. International intraregional traffic grew by 12.8%, more than double the rate of domestic traffic.

Brazil was the main driver of regional growth, accounting for approximately 39% of the net increase in passengers in the region.
It transported 10.5 million passengers (+9.9% year-on-year), with 18 consecutive months of growth in the domestic market.

Panama led the percentage growth among the major markets.
It grew 15.5% year-on-year, driven by increased traffic between Panama and the United States, which grew 8.3%.

Traffic between Latin America and the United States registered two consecutive months of growth.
After closing 2025 with a 0.3% drop, traffic between the region and the US grew 1.6% year-on-year in February 2026 and has now seen two consecutive months of growth after increasing 0.6% in January.

Demand grew above capacity.
RPKs increased 8.8%, while ASKs grew 5.8%, raising the load factor to 85.3%, 2.4 percentage points higher than in February 2025.

“Aviation in Latin America and the Caribbean continues to show solid growth, driven primarily by strengthening connectivity and demand within the region. In February, two out of every three additional passengers traveled on domestic or intraregional routes. At the same time, demand to the United States is growing again, marking two consecutive months of increases in a market that accounts for approximately one in five passengers in the region,” stated Peter Cerdá, CEO of ALTA.

Source: ALTA.