Latin America’s fleet to double in the next 20 years

This year’s Global Market Forecast (GMF) for 2019-2038 for the Latin America and Caribbean region was recently published and offers a view of how many people will travel, where they will travel, and how they will travel over the next 20 years.

It is clear that airline competition is stimulating traffic growth and the booming LCC market is targeting the 80 percent urban population in the region. Given its geography and its ground infrastructure constraints, domestic and intra-regional air transport has great potential.

Origin and destination (O&D) traffic from, to and within Latin America is expected to increase significantly over the next 20 years by growing 4.2 percent annually. Intra-regional traffic will grow 4.1 percent while domestic traffic will grow at a higher rate of 4.4 percent per year and will account for 62 percent of additional traffic by 2038. The total growth in the region will generate an additional 433 million passengers by 2038.

Growth will continue to be concentrated in the Aviation Mega-Cities (AMC). While the increase in the number of these AMC’s is marginal (from seven today to nine in 2038), the number of long-haul passengers travelling to, from and via these AMC’s will rise more than two-and-a half times from 100,000 per day in 2018 to 261,000 per day in 2038.

In order to meet this rising demand the region will need 2,700 new passenger and freighter aircraft, dominated by 2,400 in the Small category, such as single aisles, and 300 in the Medium and Large category. This implies that the region’s in-service fleet will more than double from the 1,460 aircraft in-service today to 3,000 in the next two decades. Of these aircraft, 1,160 will be for replacement of older-generation aircraft, 1,540 will account for growth, and 300 are expected to remain in service.

Read the full GMF for 2019-2038 here.

For more information contact:
Paul Moultrie
HO Marketing, Airbus Latin America and the Caribbean
paul.moultrie@airbus.com