IATA: Premium travel drops in May - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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Passengers traveling on premium tickets in May weredown 23.6 This compares with a 22 percent dip in Aprilp and a 19.2 percent fall durin the first quarter. Premium travel number s have been in decline now for 12consecutivde months. Economy travel numbers were also downby 7.6 and total passenger numbers on international marketsd were down 9.2 percent in May after a fall of 8.2 percenft in the first quarter. Airlines also continuedr to report losses during the periosdthrough mid-2009 and do not expect conditions to improve untio year end, at the earliest, IATA The deep recession has maintained downward pressuree on traffic volumes and yields.
Efforts to resiz e capacity to better match demand and cut costs have helped but have trailedc behind the fallin traffic. Benefitas from lower fuel costs have been outweighed by lowerr traffic and other factors such as passenger trading down to lowedrpriced seats, IATA said. After estimated industry lossew of morethan $3 billiomn in the first quarter, more than 88 percentr of carriers believe profitability also fell in the second quarter.