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Santiago, Chile, May 12, 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 April 2008.
System passenger traffic for April increased 7.8% as capacity rose 6.2%. As a result, the Company’s load factor increased 1.1 points to 72.2%. International passenger traffic accounted for approximately 87% of total passenger traffic.
International passenger traffic for April rose 7.0% as capacity increased 4.5%. Accordingly, the international passenger load factor for the month increased 1.8 points to 73.0%. 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 13.1% as capacity increased 17.5%. As a consequence, the domestic load factor for the month decreased 2.7 points to 67.5%. 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 April 2007.
Cargo traffic increased 10.5% as capacity rose 11.4%. As a consequence, the cargo load factor decreased 0.6 points to 72.4%, affected mainly by higher capacity on regional routes. Cargo traffic grew mainly as a result of the continued strength in the Brazilian import markets and an increase in export traffic due to the peak in the seed export season in Chile and Argentina.
In April, 91.0% 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 8.3 points compared to the same month of 2007.
