How Has The Flight Offering Between The US & Central America Changed In Recent Years?

Photo: Ronen Fefer | Shutterstock

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Leading Latin American airlines

While many of the top airlines that fly between the United States and Central America are US-based airlines, the airline with the most flights is Copa Airlines. Copa Airlines’ IATA code is “CM” and should not be confused with Honduras’ CM Airlines. Copa Airlines (formally Compañía Panameña de Aviación) is the flag carrier of Panama and is one of the top airlines in Central America, providing extensive connections throughout the region.

Change in US/Central America flights Nov 2019 and Nov 2024

Airline:

November 2019

November 2024

Change

Monthly flights:

7,325

8,655

+18%

Monthly seat capacity:

1,169,879

1,481,980

+27%

ASMs:

1,848,314,475

2,420,570,160

+31%

Avianca is the largest airline in Colombia and one of the oldest airlines in the world (it was founded in 1919). Its name is a Spanish acronym for Aerovias del Continente Americano, or “Airways of the American Continent” in English. Avianca is the flag carrier of Colombia and is also the second-largest airline in South America (Chile’s LATAM is the largest).

Photo: Markus Mainka | Shutterstock

Flights also up to leisure-destination Costa Rica

While some of the flight increase may have been driven by migrant workers and people visiting friends and family the US and Central America, some of the increase appears to be driven by tourism. Costa Rica is the top tourist destination in Central America and is popular for its tropical beaches and rainforests and its wildlife like sloths and leatherback sea turtles.

A large share of the flights to Costa Rica are leisure travel and represent around 27% of the flights to the region. US flights to Costa Rica have grown much more than the rest of the region as a whole. In November 2019, there were 1,622 flights to Costa Rica, and in November 2024, that rose to 1,988 flights. Seats rose from 268,937 to 344,062. Overall, flights have increased by 23% and seats by 28% over pre-pandemic numbers.

Photo: Angel DiBilio | Shutterstock

For comparison, there are 5,855 flights scheduled in November 2024 for Mexico’s Cancun (and over 25,000 flights for Mexico as a whole). That is around 1.1 million seats for Cancun – meaning that scheduled flights for November will only have around 100,000 fewer seats for Cancun than all of Costa Rica.

Only US-airlines flying to Costa Rica

Top airlines flying to Costa Rica:

Notably, all the significant airlines flying between Costa Rica are US-based airlines. As Costa Rica is considered a leisure destination, it attracts low-cost US carriers JetBlue, Spirit, and the hybrid carrier Southwest. These airlines focus on domestic flights within the United States and a limited number of leisure destinations to America’s near abroad.

Photo: Sun Country Airlines

Additionally, the ultra-low-cost airline Sun Country Airlines is scheduled to operate four flights to Costa Rica this November (it had none in November 2019).

Related 5 Years On: How Today’s US-South America Airline Route Offering Compares To 2019

Flights between the United States and South America have more than recovered from their pre-pandemic numbers five years ago.

The broader context

Global aviation has had a tumultuous past five years. The greatest shock was the COVID-19 pandemic, but other disruptions include the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the closure of Russian air space to Western airlines, Boeing’s ongoing crisis, conflicts in the Middle East, and geopolitical tensions with China (and a decline of Chinese international tourists).

Photo: Mihn K Tran | Shutterstock

Compared to five years ago, flights from the United States to Africa are up 33%, flights to Mexico are up 25% (although available seats are up 43%), and flights to South America are up 11%. By stark contrast, flights to Mainland China are down 74% (although they are down 91% between Canada and China).

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Publish date : 2024-10-29 14:32:00

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