World airline traffic to grow 4 percent in 2004

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) revised down on Monday its expectations for a recovery of world airline passenger traffic, which has gathered steam since the Sars outbreak in early 2003.
"We expect that for 2004, the increase (traffic) will be about four percent and from 2005 and beyond, the increase world-wide will be about five percent," ICAO president Assad Kotaite told reporters on the sidelines of an aviation seminar, without offering any specific reason for the revision.
The Montreal-based agency said in August that traffic would rebound by 4.4 percent in 2004 and 6.3 percent in 2005, after a decline in 2001 and two successive years of stagnation.
Total traffic, which consists of scheduled domestic, international and freight services, slipped two percent in 2003, the ICAO said.
Last year was a turbulent time for the aviation industry, which had to weather the twin blows of Sars and the Iraq war.
At the height of the Sars outbreak in May last year, international passenger traffic of airlines in the Asia and Pacific regions was barely half of that of a year earlier.
Kotaite said the ICAO was supportive in-flight security measures introduced by the United States to guard against hijackings, but improving security at airports through the use of advanced biometric scanning and passport reading machines were more pressing issues.
"The control should be fundamentally and mainly on the ground," he said, adding that the organisation would review aviation security measures at its meetings in March and September.
In the latest moves to improve airline security after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Washington has ordered foreign airlines to put armed guards on some flights and wants access to world airlines' booking records to help track suspects.
The ICAO, which establishes the standards and procedures of aviation safety and security, said its audit of 20 states last year showed that a lack of legislation, well-trained personnel and funding were hampering security efforts, particularly in developing countries.