AIRLINES

Trade Group Says Airlines Lost $100 Million Last Year: The Air Transport Assn. based its estimate on preliminary figures compiled from airline year-end reports. The loss brings the airlines’ total red ink to $13 billion over the last five years, the ATA said in a statement that called for repeal of the 4.3 cents per gallon aviation fuel tax scheduled to be imposed Oct. 1. The industry has gone to great lengths to cut costs and some airlines managed to make a profit in 1994, ATA President Jim Landry said. But, he added, the fuel tax “threatens to wipe out most of those efforts and could jeopardize the continued existence of some carriers.”