IATA strikes upbeat note on airlines industry earnings
11 Mar 2010
London: The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said Thursday it expects the airline industry worldwide to lose a collective $2.8 billion this year, half the previous forecast of $5.6 billion. The revision was necessitated with emerging markets leading a rebound in traffic, it said.
IATA also lowered its estimate of losses for 2009 to $9.4 billion, from $11 billion it had previously forecast.
The turnaround has mainly been driven by economic recovery in the emerging markets of Asia-Pacific and Latin America. "Asia and Latin America are driving the recovery. The weakest international markets are North Atlantic and intra-Europe which have continuously contracted since mid-2008," said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA's director general and chief executive officer.
According to IATA, passenger demand in 2010 will increase 5.6% over 2009. This too is a revision of a previous estimate of 4.5%.
Similarly, cargo traffic is now expected to rise 12% this year, higher than a previous forecast of 7%.
With yields, or average fares, expected to improve 2% over last year, and cargo yields expected to be up 3.1%, overall revenue is expected to rise to $522 billion for the year. This, again, is a $44 billion improvement on previous estimates.