Europe's airlines appear to have suffered their worst month in the downturn, with preliminary traffic figures down nine percent year-on-year in May, according to the Association of European Airlines (AEA).
"AEA's weekly figures for the last four weeks of May and the first week of June are relentlessly poor, with May likely to produce a decrease in the order of nine percent," said the association, which represents 34 major carriers.
The statement comes after the head of airports body ACI Europe told Reuters in an interview last week it was slashing its 2009 traffic forecast to 16 percent decrease in freight.
But Boeing's chief executive Jim McNerney told European newspapers ahead of the Paris Airshow that the economic crisis was unlikely to worsen.
AEA Secretary General Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus said all three of its members' markets - intra-Europe, the North Atlantic and the Far East - were suffering.
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