The air transport industry is remarkably resilient. It can get knocked off its long term growth path by extraneous events, but bounces back. The global recession sparked off by the collapse of Lehman Bros two years ago had a dramatic impact on the industry: 2009 saw a decline in overall traffic volumes of 3-4%, with a slightly higher rate of decline in international traffic, to mark only the second year in the industry's history that traffic had actually fallen. Yields however collapsed by an astonishing 13% - the largest annual decline experienced in the industry's history, although partly because fuel prices also fell in the period - and it is estimated that the industry generated an operating loss of $1.2bn and a net loss of nearly $10bn for the year.
展开▼
