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LATAM Airlines Cargo shows new life in May, June volumes increase 2.7pc

LATAM Airlines Cargo's volumes rose by 2.7 per cent year on year in June after years of mostly poor results. However, last month's improvement failed to offset year-to-date declines in cargo volumes of 3.7 per cent.

The beleaguered Chilean airline has made steps to offset falling volumes from regional markets that, up until recently, suffered from a regional economic downturn. For instance, traffic might be down, but available tonne kilometres (ATKs) also decreased 8.4 per cent in June, and 9.7 per cent, year-to-date.

These reduced ATKs are translating into higher cargo load factors, which increased 5.9 percentage points to 53.9 per cent in June compared to the same month in 2016, and are up 3.3 percentage points for the first half of this year, reported New York's Air Cargo World.

LATAM Cargo first started showing signs of a turnaround in May, when cargo traffic rose by 1.3 per cent to reach 271 million freight tonne kilometres (FTKs), its first year-on-year improvement since October 2014.

With regional economies starting to recover, and a generally strong global market, Latin America is one of the last air freight markets to cash in on strong volumes that have exceeded the expectations of most market experts.

WorldACD noted earlier this year that, "the size of the March-April drop in 2017 may act as a caveat against the view that good times are here to stay", and amended that assessment in July, describing the current market as a "fairytale".