Buenos Aires Ezeiza is Argentina"™s second busiest airport, after Buenos Aires Aeroparque, but it is the country"™s main international gateway. Its network of services (using OAG schedule data for w/c 17 November) currently covers 48 destinations across 19 different countries. This increases to 60 destinations and 24 countries if one-stop services are included. The airport is served by 28 carriers, which is the identical amount recorded in the same week of 2016. Despite this total figure remaining unchanged, there has been some movement in terms of the airport"™s tailfin collection, with Azul Airlines joining Ezeiza"™s partners (it launched its only international route from Belo Horizonte on 6 March), while Conviasa no longer serves the airport (it had previously operated from Caracas and Porlamar in Venezuela up until last month).
Three years of sustained growth
For the last three years, Ezeiza has done something it has failed to do at any other point over the last decade, and that is grow constantly year-on-year. While traffic has suffered from mixed fortunes since 2007, the overall trend is upwards, with average growth being 3.1% over the period, despite there being three years when passenger throughput fell (2009, 2011 and 2013).
If Ezeiza"™s upward traffic trajectory continues as it has since 2013, the airport should pass 10 million passengers in 2017. In the current year up to the end of June, the airport has handled 4.79 million passengers, of which 93% were on international flights (4.47 million). This compares to Aeroparque"™s traffic mix, which is 76% domestic, based on a total throughput between January and June of 6.27 million passengers. The capital city"™s facilities combined have processed 60% (11.06 million) of the 18.33 million passengers which have used all of the country"™s airports during the same sixth month period of 2017.
LATAM or not to LATAM
As suggested before, Ezeiza is presently used by 28 airlines, but it might be more accurately classified as having 25 serving carriers depending on whether the LATAM Airlines Group airlines are considered together. The group"™s airlines operating into Ezeiza include those formerly known as LAN Airlines (LA), TAM Airlines (JJ), as well as LATAM Airlines Argentina (4M; previously Aero 2000) and LATAM Airlines Paraguay (PZ; previously LAP "“ Líneas Aéreas Paraguayas). Got that? For the purposes of this analysis, and the fact that they still use separate airline codes in the OAG schedules, our data elves have treated these four airlines separately in order understand where any capacity changes have been made within the group…
