GENEVA — The year 2009 saw the largest ever post-war decline in passenger demand for the world’s airlines – for the full year down 3.5% with an average load factor of 75.6%.

“In terms of demand, 2009 goes into the history books as the worst year the industry has ever seen. We have permanently lost 2.5 years of growth in passenger markets,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s director general and CEO.

International passenger capacity fell 0.7% in December 2009. Yields have started to improve with tighter supply-demand conditions in recent months, but they remained 5-10% down on 2008 levels. “Revenue improvements will be at a much slower pace than the demand growth that we are starting to see. Profitability will be even slower to recover and airlines will lose an expected US$5.6 billion in 2010,” said Bisignani.

Seasonally adjusted demand figures for December compared to November 2009 indicate a 1.6% rise in passenger traffic.

December 2009 passenger demand recorded a 4.5% improvement compared to December 2008, with a load factor of 77.6%. While this is an 8.4% demand improvement from the February 2009 low point, it is still 3.4% below the early 2008 peak.

Carriers in Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America recorded year-on-year declines in passenger demand of 5.6%, 5.0% and 5.6% respectively in 2009. Asia-Pacific carriers stand out as benefitting most from the year-end upturn with an 8.0% year-on-year improvement in December. This reflects their 35% contribution to the year-end rise boosted by the significant economic upturn in the region. By contrast, European carriers saw a 1.2% decline and North American carriers declined by 0.4%. While both North American and European carriers saw demand improvements in the first half of the year, the second half was basically flat.

Middle Eastern carriers generated the fastest growth in passenger traffic at the end of the year with a 19.1% increase in December (and 11.2% growth for the entire year). These gains result from Middle Eastern carriers taking a larger share of long-haul connecting traffic over their hubs.

Latin American carriers recorded 7.1% growth in December. Full-year traffic growth was constrained to 0.3% due to the impact of Influenza A(H1N1) fears during the second and third quarters.

Africa’s carriers experienced a sharp decline of 6.8% in 2009 primarily on an exceptionally weak first half. Their year ended with December demand at 3.1% above previous year levels.

According to Bisignani, the airlines also face a renewed challenge on security as a result of the events of Dec. 25 2009. “The approach of the Obama administration is encouraging with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano visiting IATA’s offices in Geneva to engage industry to find solutions. We agreed that governments and industry must cooperate and we are preparing for a meeting in the coming weeks to follow-up on our recommendations which focused on finding more efficient ways to implement intelligence-driven and risk-based security measures.

“Governments and industry are aligned in the priority that we place on security. But the cost of security is also an issue. Globally, airlines spend US$5.9 billion a year on what are essentially measures concerned with national security. This is the responsibility of governments, and they should be picking up the bill,” said Bisignani.