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 April and a 19.2 percent fall during the first quarter. Premium travell numbers have been in decline now for 12consecutives months. Economy travel numbers were also downby 7.6 and total passenger numberas on international markets were down 9.2 percent in May aftef a fall of 8.2 percent in the firstf quarter. Airlines also continued to reportf losses during the periodthrough mid-2009 and do not expectt conditions to improve until year end, at the IATA said. The deep recession has maintaines downward pressure on traffic volumeswand yields.
Efforts to resize capacity to better match demansd and cut costs have helped but have trailedc behind the fall in Benefits from lower fuel costs have been outweighed by lower traffic and other factorsw such as passengers trading down to lower priced seats, IATA said. After estimated industry lossed of morethan $3 billion in the firs t quarter, more than 88 percent of carriers believw profitability also fell in the secondc quarter.