LAN Airlines reports increased passenger and cargo traffic for January 2011

The load factor increased to 82.7%, up 0.5 percentage points compared to January 2010.

LAN acquired Colombian airline AIRES in November 2010 so its group figures now include AIRES' domestic and international operations.

Overall, domestic passenger traffic in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia rose 22.4% and domestic capacity was increased by 22.3%. On international services passenger traffic grew 9.5%, while capacity was 8.5% higher than in January last year.

The domestic load factor for the month was up 0.1 points to 81.0% and the international load factor rose 0.8 points to 83.6%.

LAN's cargo traffic increased by 12.6% in January 2011, marginally outpaced by a 13.9% increase in capacity which resulted in the cargo load factor dropping 0.7 points to 66.4%.

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