By Jay Morgan, Director, Professional Data Services at Cirium
In a very demanding year Copa Airlines soared to the top of our on-time rankings.
Copa operated at a very high level of on-time performance, with 89.46% of its flights arriving on time, surpassing avianca (85.73%) and last year’s winner Azul (85.51%). In addition, Copa achieved significant reduction in cancellations (63%) year over year—a noteworthy improvement in the passenger experience.
In 2023 LATAM (84.07%) recorded over 494,000 flights — more than double the number of the other carriers in the top nine, apart from Azul that flew approximately 303,000 flights.
Latin America continued to see growth in operations throughout 2023. Increased demand for domestic and international travel, cargo, plus the addition of Aerus and Mexicana de Aviacion set the stage for newly opened routes and significant new aircraft orders and leases.
Scheduled Latin American commercial passenger flights increased by 16% year over year. The top carriers in the region operated at 117% of their pre-pandemic levels and are fully expected to continue to see growth in 2024.
These are very encouraging statistics overall, in a year that saw the restructuring of three major Latin American carriers. These airlines added new routes to their schedules and modernized their fleets demonstrating that they are keeping pace with a very strong post-COVID recovery.
