LATAM carrier faces cargo yields fall 12.6pc.

MAJOR South American carrier LATAM posted a 10.9- per cent fall in year-on-year first quarter revenue to US$263.5 million, driven by a 12.6 per cent decline in cargo yields, reported London’s Air Cargo News.

This was partially offset by an increase of 1.3 percentage points in the load factor to reach 56 per cent. LATAM carried 215,000 tons of cargo during the three-month period, down from 225,000 in the same period of 2018.

Present economic situation cause tension on LATAM airline results.

Depreciation of regional currencies resulted in lower imports into the region, especially to Brazil and Argentina, LATAM said. Furthermore, the sale of LATAM former Mexican subsidiary, MasAir, in the second half of 2018 reduced the carrier cargo revenues. On the other hand, export markets continued to improve, especially salmon shipped from Chile.

LATAM total revenue decreased by 7.5 per cent year on year in the first quarter to $2.52 billion, due to a fall in passenger as well as cargo revenues; cargo revenue accounted 10.4 per cent of total operating revenue. At the end of 2018, LATAM Cargo was operating a fleet of nine B767-300 freighters. It expects to be operating a fleet of 10 of these aircraft by the end of 2019.

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