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Last year’s combined Latin and North American international air passenger traffic raced ahead of pre-pandemic 2019 to the tune of 8 % points. In this exclusive report for TRBusiness Air4casts examines the outlook for this dynamic Travel Retail region. The analysis comes from the Air4casts Travel Retail data platform for brands and retailers.
A Vibrant Market for Travel Retail
The Americas region airports in 2024 were also 9% bigger than they were in 2023 and have more than doubled in size in the space of 20 years.
With the latest forecasts for the combined Americas region showing well over 900 million arriving and departing international passengers in 2040, the opportunities for Travel Retail are more than considerable.
“The brands and retailers doing business at the region’s 500 or so international airports have a bright outlook ahead over the next 10 to 15 years” commented Air4casts Marketing Director, Emma Wiseman.
Avolta Dominates the Regional Passenger Reach
Taking both the Latin and North American regions together Avolta is by far the biggest retailer in terms of sheer passenger reach. The latest Air4casts forecast for 2025 gives them a 45% regional share of the departing international PAX count owing to their wide airside shop presence.
Very closely matched in second and third position are both 3 Sixty and Duty Free Americas. 3 Sixty has grown its airside presence in recent years and now has the potential to reach almost as many departing international passengers in 2025 as its rival DFA. Motta Internacional in the fourth slot is the only retailer in the region with all its operations in Latin America.
JFK Still Leads the Region’s Airports
US airports had a particularly good year in 2024 and with the final rankings now in place New York’s JFK hub retained its top international airport slot for the Americas region. Four of the top ten airports in the region were in the USA last year.
Two Canadian airports appeared in the 2024 top 10 for the region. Toronto was in second position with a 5% share of the region’s international passenger traffic while Montréal took tenth place. Three airports shared the third slot last year. Miami, Los Angeles and Cancun each took a 4% slice of the regional market with Cancun’s performance bolstered by especially large numbers of American tourists. Los Angeles airport is still below its 2019 high because of reduced traffic from Asia/Pacific. Miami in contrast posted in excess of 12% growth last year compared with 2019. Only Sao Paulo Guarulhos appeared in the regional top 10 from among Brazil’s airports and it achieved that position with a near 14% point increase in international passengers over 2019.
USA, USA, USA
There has been an extraordinary surge over the past two years in the number of American citizens taking international flights out of the USA. They appear to be unstoppable in their thirst for overseas travel. In January 2025 alone the official number of US passport holders leaving for foreign destinations was over 25% larger than it was in January 2019. Consequently, they dominate the whole Americas air travel market.
Taking all international departures out of all airports in both Latin and North America gives US passport holders a 21% share of the total regional market in 2025. US citizens are by far and away the largest travelling nationality in the Americas region, both from an American airport viewpoint and from the standpoint of the airports in each of the other countries in the region.
Canadian nationals are ahead, just, of the Brazilians and Mexicans this year while the intrepid British, with no “home” departure country in the region, make it comfortably into fifth place. The British traveller loves to travel throughout the USA and Canada but they also enjoy travelling to the Latin American vacation hotspots from the Dominican Republic to Mexico and of course to the Caribbean, especially during the cold, wet British winters.
For more information on the Air4casts Travel Retail data suite please contact Emma Wiseman at [email protected].
