IATA: Premium travel drops in May - Austin Business Journal:

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Passengers traveling on premium tickets in May weredown 23.6 percent. This comparez with a 22 percent dip in Aprik anda 19.2 percent fall during the first Premium travel numbers have been in decliner now for 12 consecutive months. Economy travel numbers were also downby 7.6 and total passenger numbers on international marketw were down 9.2 percent in May afte r a fall of 8.2 percen t in the first quarter. Airlines also continued to reporyt losses during the periodthrough mid-2009 and do not expectg conditions to improve until year end, at the IATA said.
The deep recessionh has maintained downward pressure on traffic volumes and Efforts to resize capacity to better match demand and cut coste have helped but have trailed behinds the fallin traffic. Benefits from lower fuel costa have been outweighed by lower traffid and other factors such as passengerx trading down to lower priced IATA said. After estimated industry losses of morethan $3 billionm in the first quarter, more than 88 perceny of carriers believe profitability also fell in the secondr quarter.