ASIA PACIFIC. Passenger traffic on Asian airlines fell nearly -10% in 2003 as the SARS outbreak and the war in Iraq devastated the travel industry, the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines said today.
The association, which groups 17 of the region’s international carriers, said the drop in passenger traffic translated into three years lost growth for the volatile industry.
Garuda Indonesia suffered the largest fall, measured by the number of passengers carried multiplied by the distance travelled, followed by Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines, and Cathay Pacific Airways.
The SARS outbreak last spring scared away many leisure and business travellers and forced Asian carriers to slash flights and offer steep discounts to lure back passengers.
But passenger traffic bounced back quickly once the disease was contained. In December, traffic rose +3.8% from the same month in 2002, the second straight month of positive growth.
