World Airlines Meet to Discuss Safety

World airlines open an annual meeting today in Amman, Jordan, haunted by the fear that with traffic projected to double by 2010, major jet crashes could increase to an average of one per week. International scheduled passenger traffic jumped 8.4% in 1996 and is forecast to increase by a third over the next five years, making the International Air Transport Assn.’s declared aim to halve disaster rates its most important goal, said its director general, Pierre Jeanniot, in an annual report to be published today. Senior executives from the IATA’s 258 member airlines are meeting to discuss what can be done to reduce disaster rates. According to the IATA, there were 19 aircraft losses worldwide in 1996, up from 17 in 1995. Of those, 12 involved fatalities, with 1,189 passengers and 97 crew members killed. At the same time, the annual report also said the industry must tackle how to be more profitable. Despite rising traffic and higher load factors, the report said IATA airlines saw pre-tax profits from international scheduled services fall 18% last year to a collective $3 billion on a 6.4% rise in sales to $137.6 billion.