News & Press

Air traffic in April 2026: key highlights:

• Regional air traffic reached 39.2 million passengers in April.
  • The domestic market accounted for 54.8% of total traffic, while international traffic represented 45.2%.

• Regional growth slowed compared to the first quarter.
  • Traffic grew 1.0% year-on-year in April, below the increases recorded in January (+6.2%), February (+6.6%), and March (+6.0%).

• Intra-regional traffic continued to grow faster than the regional average.
  • Traffic between countries in Latin America and the Caribbean increased 6.2%, while extra-regional traffic declined 0.4%.

• Panama was the main driver of regional growth.
  • Traffic grew 14.3% year-on-year and reached 1.86 million passengers, supported by traffic with the United States (+12.9%) and regional markets such as Mexico (+21%) and Brazil (+17%).

• Brazil recorded more moderate growth.
  • o   The region’s largest air travel market grew 1.8%, following increases of 10.3% in January, 9.9% in February, and 8.3% in March.

• Mexico continued to show weakness.
  • Total traffic declined 3.5% year-on-year and is down 0.8% during the first four months of the year. The Mexico–United States market has contracted 5.6% year-to-date.

• Operating costs continued to increase across the region.
  • In April, fuel prices were 41% higher than a year earlier in Brazil[ii] and as much as 60% higher in Mexico[iii]. At the same time, consumer air fare prices increased 23.2% in Brazil.

“Regional growth slowed to 1% in April amid increasing cost pressures. Fuel prices are 41% higher in Brazil and 60% higher in Mexico than a year ago. Even so, intra-regional traffic continued to grow 6.2%. This underscores the importance of close coordination between governments and industry to strengthen and protect connectivity, which drives development and well-being across the region, while helping mitigate the external pressures facing the sector,” said Peter Cerdá, CEO of ALTA.

The full analysis, including country-level detail, international markets, new routes, and insights on the cost environment, fuel prices, and air traffic, is available at: ALTA Traffic Report – April 2026.

Glossary: RPK (Revenue Passenger Kilometers): number of paying passengers transported multiplied by the distance flown | ASK (Available Seat Kilometers): number of seats available for sale multiplied by the distance flown | Load Factor: obtained by dividing RPK by ASK.

Methodological Note 1

In this document, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is defined as the combined total of South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico. This definition is applied consistently across all regional and international traffic analyses. Domestic traffic refers to flights operated within the same country. International traffic is classified into two broad segments:

• Intra-regional international traffic: flights between countries within LAC (e.g., Argentina–Brazil or Mexico–Colombia).
• Extra-regional international traffic: flights between LAC and other regions of the world, such as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, or Africa.   

Methodological note 2: IATA figures reflect traffic carried by airlines based in each region (RPKs), while ALTA figures are based on passengers traveling to, from, and within Latin America and the Caribbean (origin-destination traffic). The two metrics are not directly comparable due to methodological differences between the two sources.

[i] International Air Transport Association (IATA), Air Passenger Market Analysis – April 2026, June 2026. Available at: IATA Air Passenger Market Analysis – April 2026.