On February 18, 2010 The Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association (ALTA) announced that its member airlines carried 123.5 million passengers in 2009, up 3.6% from the previous year. In addition to passengers increasing 3.6%, traffic (measured in RPKs) grew 3.0% and capacity (measured in ASKs) increased 4.0%. The load factor dipped to 70.5%, a whole 0.7 percentage points lower than in 2008. "The Latin America and Caribbean region as a whole did well in producing positive numbers, especially considering the challenging environment caused by the worldwide economic crisis, and is well positioned to continue with its traditional positive growth rates," says ALTA's Executive Director, Alex de Gunten.

The number of passengers carried in December increased 13.6% versus the same month of the previous year, reaching 11.7 million passengers. During the aforementioned period, traffic (RPKs) rose 11.6%, capacity (ASKs) increased 6.6%, and passenger load factor reached 73.7%, 3.3 percentage points lower than the previous year. Freight ton kilometers increased 38.1% in December, but fell 3.5% in 2009.