IATA sees airlines in the black by 2011, revenue recovery in two years

IATA Director-General & CEO, Giovanni Bisignani, forecast airline revenues would recover to 2008 levels within two years and the airline industry would report a profit by 2011 (Reuters, 24-Mar-2010). Industry revenue declined by approximately USD80 billion in 2009. Mr Bisignani also called for more liberalisation of market access and ownership restrictions, highlighting the current EU-US open skies process as the "next test" for industry liberalisation.

IATA: "With a loss of USD2.8 billion this year, I think we can say with a reasonable degree of certainty that we will be back in the black in 2011. We have an [expected revenue] improvement this year of USD43 billion, so we suppose that in two years we will recover the loss," Giovanni Bisignani, Director-General & CEO. Source: Reuters, 24-Mar-2010.