MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

LAN Chile and affiliates passenger and cargo traffic soars in May

Most Lan flights (85%) also left on time

LAN Chile Airlines and subsidiaries, (NYSE: LFL / IPSA: LAN), one of the leading airlines in Latin America, reported on Monday its preliminary monthly traffic statistics and punctuality indicators for May 2010.

System passenger traffic for May increased 13.9% as capacity rose 10.7%. As a result, the company’s load factor increased 2.0 points to 74.3%. International passenger traffic accounted for approximately 70% of total passenger traffic.

Domestic passenger traffic in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador rose 15.2% as capacity increased 10.1%. As a consequence, the domestic load factor for the month increased 3.3 points to 75.3%.

International passenger traffic for May grew 13.3%, while capacity increased 11.0%. Accordingly, the international passenger load factor for the month increased 1.5 points to 73.8%. During May, international capacity was mainly driven by an increase in operations on routes to Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean.

During May, cargo traffic increased 39.3%. This increase was mainly due to the recovery in imports to Latin America driven by Brazil and the increase in operations to Europe with the B777-200 freighter fleet. In-line with higher demand, capacity grew 30.6%. As a result, the cargo load factor rose 4.4 points to 70.4%.

During May, 85.1% of the Company’s total flights left on time based on a fifteen-minute standard (all departures leaving within fifteen minutes of the scheduled departure time are considered as “on-time”). This represented a decrease of 2.7 points compared to May 2009.

LAN Airlines is one of the leading passenger and cargo airlines in Latin America. The company and its affiliates serve over 70 destinations around the world through an extensive network that offers full connectivity within Latin America, while also linking the region with North America, Europe and the South Pacific, as well as 70 additional international destinations through its various alliances.

LAN Airlines and its affiliates have a leading position in their respective domestic markets of Chile and Peru as well as an important presence in the Argentine domestic market and has completed its first year of operations in the domestic market of Ecuador.