After a year of slow-downs, China's air transport will see a strong rebound in 2004, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicted on February 17.

The number of passengers and amount of cargo carried by China's airlines this year will increase by 20 percent and 18 percent respectively compared with last year, said IATA Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani.

According to Zhang Baojian, chief representative of IATA in China, the yearly increase of passengers and cargo carried last year was only 0.7 percent and 5 percent, mainly due to the impact of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

IATA has 271 airlines from about 160 countries and regions as members. Those airlines carry 1.6 billion passengers a year.

Currently, China is the star of the Asian market and "we are all looking with great interest and expectation to the role that Chinese market will be playing in the next years in the world," Bisignani said in Beijing yesterday.

In addition to the positive situation in China, Bisignani said the air transport industry in the world as a whole is going to recover from poor performances in the past three years.

The association predicts that passengers and cargo carried this year will see a 6.9 percent and a 4.4 percent year-on-year increase.

Last year the number of passengers dropped by 2.4 percent and the amount of cargo carried increased by 4.9 percent compared with 2002.

And while the whole industry suffered a loss of US$4.9 billion last year, it will, for first time since 2001, make a profit of US$3 billion this year, Bisignani said.

He attributed the recovery in China and the whole world to increased efficiency and the fact that airlines have reduced nearly 1 million staff.

However, Bisignani said it is time for governments and airports, who are in a monopoly position, to do their parts. One of the problems the association always pays attention to is high airport and fuel fees.

For example, the level of fees at Chinese airports is very high and the second highest in the world after that in Japan and the fuel fee in China is 50 percent higher than that in other parts of the world, he said.

According to Zhang, in talks with Bisignani on February 17, Chinese civil aviation officials said measures will be taken soon to reduce fuel fees.

Bisignani said he appreciated what the Chinese Government is doing.

The Chinese Government needs to make sure that foreign airlines compete with Chinese ones under fair conditions, he added.

(China Daily February 18, 2004)