Airlines experience worst ever year in 2009. - The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported December and the whole of 2009 for international scheduled air traffic as being the largest ever post-war decline. The accumulated losses for 230 IATA companies are estimated at around $11 billion in 2009, added to the $38 billion lost since 2000. Turnover also fell sharply by $79 billion last year to $456 billion, a fall of almost 15%. Passenger demand for the full year was down 3.5% although this figure increased by + 1.6% in 2008. In the freight sector, the decline for the whole year was 10.1%. This sector has, nevertheless, enjoyed a massive recovery since the end of 2009, with a rise of 24.4% in December. This is proof of a certain upturn in business, and traffic cargo jumped by 33% in Africa, 32.1% in the Middle East and 23.9% in North America, but only 5.2% in Europe. In the passenger sector, by region over the whole of 2009, Asia-Pacific, European and North American carriers experienced falls of 5.6%, 5.0% and 5.6% respectively. Only transport from the Asia-Pacific region caught up in December (+8.0% compared to December 2008). Carriers from Africa experienced a sharp fall (-6.8%) in 2009. They finished the year with an increase of 3.1% in December compared to the previous year. Latin American carriers enjoyed growth of 7.1%. Growth for the whole year was, however, limited to 0.3%. Carriers from the Middle East were the only ones to have experienced rapid growth at the end of last year, with an increase of 19.1% in December (and +11.2% over the whole year). (I.L.transl.fl)