Recession, War Cut Airline Traffic 12%

Hurt by recession and war, international passenger traffic on 200 major airlines was down an average 12% in the first five months of the year, an industry group said Wednesday.

Airlines lost $2.5 billion in January through March during the height of the Persian Gulf crisis, the International Air Transport Assn. said.

Recession in the United States and some other major industrial countries continued to cut into business travel, the airline industry’s greatest profit source, IATA spokesman John Brindley said.

“I cannot yet talk about light at the end of the tunnel following the Gulf crisis,” IATA Director General Guenter Eser of Germany said in a statement.