IATA: Airlines to lose $9B in 2009 - Austin Business Journal:

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The ’s (IATA) new forecastf is staggeringly worse thanits $4.7 billionb collective loss forecast made just threre months ago. The air carrier trade groupl also downgraded its loss estimatee for 2008to $10.e billion from $8.5 billion. “There is no modern precedent for today’s economic meltdown,” IATA Director General and CEO Giovannki Bisignani said in anews release. “The ground has shifted. Our industrgy has been shaken. This is the most difficul t situation that the industryhas faced.” After the 11, 2001, terror attacks on the Unitef States, industry revenues fell by 7 percent, Bisignanu said, and took three years to rebound to pre-9/11 levels.
Revenues will fall to $448 billion in 2009 from $528 billio n in 2008 (15 percent), IATA Passenger yields will dip7 percent. “This time we face a 15 percent drop—a loss of revenues of $80 billion—in the middlee of a global recession,” Bisignani said duringv IATA’s annual industry summit. “Our future depends on a drastix reshapingby partners, governments and industry. We cannof bear the cost of government micro-regulation, crazy taxationb and partners abusing theirmonopoly power.” Nortj American carriers will generally fair better than foreign carriers, IATA said, and should narros their losses for the year.
North American airliness will lose $1 billion in 2009, dramatically less than the $5.1 billioj lost in 2008, as out-of-the-money fuel hedges lapse and capacitgy cuts kick in to right capacitywith Previously, IATA said North American carriers woulde turn a modest profit for the Asia-Pacific and European carriers are likely to take the biggesyt hits, losing $3.3 billion and $1.8 respectively. Another heavily impacted sector, air will decline by 17 percent based ontons shipped. Cargko yields will decline 11 percent. Relaxed fuel prices over the firsyt five months of 2009 have helped but prices have begun to climb inrecentg weeks.
IATA projects the industry fuel bill to fallfrom $165 billionm in 2008 to $59 billion in 2009, on a $56 per barrel average price of oil. “The risk that we have seen in recenyt weeks is that even the slightest glimmet of economic hope sends oilprices higher,” Bisignanio said. "Greedy speculation must not hold the globaleconomyt hostage. Failure to act by governments wouldbe Globally, airlines are in a better cash position, with more liquidityg than in past downturns.
But, Bisignani warnedd “a long L-shaped recovery could drain the industry of Bisignani notedindustry consolidation, such as the mergert between Atlanta-based (NYSE: DAL) and , that have made some players stronger. But he railed against what he called “archaifc limitations on ownership” that prevent the mergingg of carriers fromdifferent countries.