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Santiago, Chile, April 11, 2008
LAN Airlines S.A. and its related companies, (“LAN” or “the Company”) (NYSE: LFL / IPSA: LAN), one of the leading airline groups in Latin America, reported its preliminary monthly traffic statistics and punctuality indicators for March 2008.
System passenger traffic for March increased 14.2% as capacity rose 9.2%. As a result, the Company’s load factor increased 3.5 points to 79.5%. International passenger traffic accounted for approximately 88% of total passenger traffic.
International passenger traffic for March rose 14.6% as capacity increased 10.5%. Accordingly, the international passenger load factor for the month increased 2.9 points to 80.6%. Long-haul capacity grew due to an increase in operations to the United States, Europe, the South Pacific and the Caribbean. Short-haul capacity grew mainly as a result of an expansion in the Argentine and Peruvian domestic markets.
Domestic passenger traffic in Chile rose 11.1% as capacity increased 1.5%. As a consequence, the domestic load factor for the month increased 6.3 points to 72.7%. Growth in domestic traffic was stimulated by the Company’s new business model for short haul operations, offset by a more difficult comparison base, since the new fare structure began to be implemented in March 2007.
Cargo traffic increased 10.3% as capacity rose 12.4%. As a consequence, the cargo load factor decreased 1.4 points to 73.5%, affected mainly by higher capacity on regional routes. Cargo traffic grew mainly as a result of the continued strength in the Brazilian import markets while export traffic remains stable.
In March, 86.3% 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 an increase of 2.9 points compared to the same month of 2007.
