Air Companies Will End 2004 in the Red

Regardless of a recent upturn as far as passengers and cargo volumes worldwide are concerned, the globe’s top airlines will lose more than $4.8 billion in 2004, the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) informed this week.

IATA Director Giovanni Bisignani said that regardless of “a negative economic environment and heightened uncertainty about fluctuating oil prices, the international air traffic has been climbing steadily over the past ten months.”

A sinking greenback is also putting a different spin on the aviation industry in the short haul. The timing couldn’t be any better because larger hordes of tourists are interested now in visiting the U.S. at a moment when American low-cost carriers are flexing their muscles in the domestic market.

In North America alone, passenger traffic climbed 12.1 percent in October. South of the border that increment peaked 14.3 percent. Europe and the Asian-Pacific Rim, for their parts, clicked 7.7 and 12.4 percent, respectively.

However, most major airlines are still sailing through the fallout of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., the SARS outbreak in Asia, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a wobbly world economy that has only started sizzling at a slow burn.