Airlines suffered record drop in traffic in 2009: IATA

akmountaineer

akmountaineer

Well-Known Member
International airlines suffered their biggest decline in traffic since 1945 last year as passenger demand fell 3.5 percent, the International Air Transport Association said Wednesday.

Freight also fell, by 10.1 percent, as "full-year 2009 demand statistics for international scheduled air traffic that showed the industry ending 2009 with the largest ever post-war decline," IATA said in a statement.
"In terms of demand, 2009 goes into the history books as the worst year the industry has ever seen," said Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the world's biggest airlines' association. "We have permanently lost 2.5 years of growth in passenger markets and 3.5 years of growth in the freight business," he added.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.a4ea13bb23f2b8447e481fd1c0668f93.171&show_article=1
 
The poor economy probably had a lot to do with this. As our economy recovers (if it recovers), air traffic will return to normal levels.
 
Surprises me. As a gate agent and non-rev, I can tell you that UA did pretty well this year loads wise at least out of SFO. Days with consistently empty flights were few and far between, and almost daily the Skywest flights were booked solid
 
ChasenSFO said:
Surprises me. As a gate agent and non-rev, I can tell you that UA did pretty well this year loads wise at least out of SFO. Days with consistently empty flights were few and far between, and almost daily the Skywest flights were booked solid
Click to expand...

Isn't that more a reflection of the redection in capacity?
 
I suppose. Though if anything it seems like frequencies have been altered in the past year or two rather than decreasing on most routes they increased. But thats just an observation of the UA and DL route networks.
 
At the beginning of last year I was on airplanes that were less than half full. I even had one flight from L.A. to KC that had 13 people on it. However, the last few months of 09' I saw nothing but packed flights. My observations lead me to believe that the worst should be past and there are better times to come.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top