The airline industry in Latin America continues to deal with vastly divergent travel rules, vaccination rates and political posturing, slowing the region’s widespread recovery from the global pandemic.
From Mexico in the north, which never really shut down even at the height of the crisis, to Argentina in the south, which still caps passenger numbers and maintains high taxes on international travel, the region’s rebound could take much longer than the rest of the world’s.
“Airlines are returning,” says Peter Cerda, IATA’s regional vice-president for Latin America. “But we also have to understand Latin America is not Europe, nor is it North America, nor do we have the same resources like those regions do.”
Vaccination rates in Latin America have lagged other regions and, unlike elsewhere, its governments have largely not bolstered their airlines with pandemic-related financial aid. As a result, the region’s carriers face a steeper climb out of the industry crisis.
Also, simply returning to 2019 levels – a milestone some US carriers neared in the past months – is not enough for many of the airlines operating in the vast Latin American region, IATA says.
“Returning to what we had in 2019 may be okay for North America or Europe or Asia, but it is simply unacceptable for Latin America,” Cerda says.
According to IATA figures, in 2019, the region’s airline industry posted a loss of $700 billion. “We can’t go back to a money-losing industry,” he states.
In 2020, Latin American airlines lost $11.9 billion. While that number is expected to narrow to $4 billion in 2021, the recovery is proving to be uneven across the region.
Few of the governments had set aside financial aid for the industry aside from some tax relief, so the airlines were, and for the most part remain, on their own.
“Last year, when borders started closing and countries started shutting down in Europe and Asia, the pandemic had not yet reached Latin America,”…