Ecuador, home to just under 16.39 million inhabitants, is South America"™s sixth largest aviation market with regards to seat capacity, offering 13.52 million seats in 2017, behind Peru in fifth (39.16 million seats last year) but ahead of Venezuela in seventh (11.08 million). The nation is served by nine airports which offered over 50,000 departing seats in 2017, with the leading destination for capacity being Quito (3.10 million departing seats in 2017), followed by Guayaquil (2.66 million) and Baltra Island situated in the Galápagos Islands (0.30 million). Quito and Guayaquil are both by far the most dominant hubs in the country, with the two combined providing 85% of seats from the nation last year, up from 84% in 2016.
Market drops by over one quarter in four years
Last year there were 13.52 million seats in the Ecuador market, a drop of 9.8% when compared to 2016. The result means that seat capacity has been cut from the nation for four consecutive years, with seat availability, being 27% smaller than it was four years ago when capacity hit a high of 18.54 million seats. Last year is the worst year on record for capacity during the past decade…
