Montreal, May 28: The world's airlines reduced their financial bleeding in 2002 following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but still reported an overall loss, the International Civil Aviation Organization said. The UN agency's 188 member states reported airlines around the world lost US$7.4 billion in 2002. The 2.3 per cent operating loss improved on a 3.8 per cent loss in 2001, when air travel was devastated by the September 11 attacks involving hijacked commercial planes, an ICAO news release said. North American airlines were the hardest hit, reporting operating losses of about 7.6 per cent in 2002, compared with 9 per cent the previous year, while the rest of the world's airlines had operating profits of 0.6 per cent, compared with a 0.6 percent loss the previous year, ICAO said yesterday.
The world's airlines carried 1.61 billion passengers in 2002, a slight decrease from 2001. Freight traffic improved by 5 per cent internationally, even though mail traffic fell substantially for the second consecutive year because of security restrictions in the United States, according to ICAO. Meanwhile, in Chicago the Boeing company said that the German carrier Lufthansa had signed up to become the first full-blown commercial customer for its airborne broadband service, Connexion.
Under the deal, Lufthansa, which previously tested the service, agreed to equip its fleet of approximately 80 long-haul aircraft with the technology to allow passengers to surf the web while they are airborne, beginning in early 2004. Bureau Report