European airline recovery is 'frail'

The Association of European Airlines has reported that European airlines' international traffic rose 3.8% from a year earlier in the week of August 18-24, describing the recovery as "frail".

Secretary-general of the Association, Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, said that although there is no doubt that they are on the upside of the depression, there has been no rebound as in previous downturns.

He went on to say that they have a long way to go before we reaching satisfactory levels.

On European routes, traffic rose 3.4%, on North Atlantic routes it was up 9.5% albeit from very depressed levels in the preceding year, and on Far East and Australasian routes traffic was down 5.1%.