Global airlines seen to lose $9B–IATA

Slump worse than the 9/11 aftermath
 
KUALA LUMPUR: The world’s airlines are expected to lose nine billion dollars this year, industry body IATA said Monday in a drastic reassessment of the worst slump the industry has ever faced.

The forecast is almost double an estimate made just three months ago, making the crisis worse than the after­math of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the International Air Transport Association said.

Combined with the revised estimate that it had lost $10.4 billion in 2008, the industry now looks set to lose almost $20 billion dollars over two years.

“There is no modern precedent for today’s economic meltdown. The ground has shifted. Our industry has been shaken,” IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani told the association’s annual meeting.

Despite lower fuel charges, airlines will suffer from a drop of eight percent in passenger demand and 17 percent in cargo demand in 2009 as the global economy grapples with its worst recession since the 1930s.

Even an economic recovery could complicate things if “greedy specula­tion” sends oil prices rising again, Bisignani warned.

Carriers in all regions are expected to report losses in 2009, with Asia-Pacific airlines—once the brightest spot of the industry—accounting for more than a third of the global total loss at $3.3 billion.

“This is the most difficult situation that the industry has faced,” Bisignani said, calling for greater liberalization in the industry.

In March, IATA had forecast 2009 losses at $4.7 billion, but it was forced to drastically raise the figure and revise 2008 industry losses up to $10.4 billion, from an earlier estimate of $8.5 billion.

Bisignani said the impact of the global financial and economic crisis was worse than that of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

After the attacks, global airline revenues tumbled by 7 percent and it took three years for the industry to recover despite a strong global economy, he said.

“This time we face a 15 percent drop—a loss of revenues of $80 billion—in the middle of a global recession,” he said.

The industry is expected to generate $448 billion in revenues in 2009, down from $528 billion in 2008.

“Our future depends on a drastic reshaping by partners, governments and industry. We cannot bear the cost of government micro-regulation, crazy taxation and partners abusing their monopoly power,” the IATA head said.

Akbar Al Baker, chief executive of Qatar Airways, played down the forecast.

“Where did he get the figures? He is just estimating,” he told Agence France-Presse, adding that his company was still determined to order 200 new planes from 2009 to 2017 in addition to the 84 now in its modern fleet.

But Shukor Yusof, an aviation analyst with Standard and Poor’s Equity Research in Singapore, said “my own feeling is that it could even get worse, depending on how the next six months pan out.” — AFP