Traffic volumes: majority-owned international subsidiaries

Passenger volumes

Brazil

Owing to very high Covid case rates, the upturn in Brazilian passenger numbers temporarily stalled in the first quarter of 2021. The situation continually improved in tandem with the national vaccination programme rollout, and passenger volumes rose steadily until the end of the year. Following expansion of domestic flights in the third quarter, the national airlines offered international flights again for the first time in the fourth quarter. Passenger volumes recovered to around 85% of pre-crisis levels by the end of the year.

Florianópolis
In comparison with the previous year, traffic volumes at Florianópolis Airport went up by 26% to 2.4 million passengers, and 10 regular national destinations were added to the route network. International flights to Buenos Aires and Santiago were added in December 2021. The volume of passenger traffic was around 60% of 2019 levels.

Vitória/Macaé
Traffic volumes at Vitória Airport grew 34% year on year to 2.0 million passengers, and flights to Salvador and Goiânia were added to the route network. The volume of passenger traffic was around 61% of 2019 levels.

Macaé serves the oil rigs off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. With 21,000 flight movements in 2021, Macaé is credited with being the airport handling the most helicopter flights in the world. After regular commercial flights ceased in 2020 because of the pandemic, it was possible to maintain the daily flight to Rio de Janeiro for the entire year.

Chile

Rising copper prices during the reporting year drove growth in the Chilean mining industry, which in turn resulted in a large volume of business travel.

Antofagasta
Once most of the pandemic-related restrictions had been lifted, traffic volumes greatly increased in the second half of the year, almost reaching pre-crisis levels again during the last months of 2021.

Iquique
As in Antofagasta, the mining industry drove a rise in passenger traffic. Iquique also benefited from domestic tourism as travelling abroad was still subject to many restrictions. Traffic rose significantly in the second half, with averages in the last months of the year even surpassing the respective 2019 levels.

Key data