Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association, made the announcement in Vancouver at the opening of IATA's annual meeting.
"While the results are encouraging, airlines are a 470- billion-dollar industry," he said.
Calling a profit of five billion dollars "peanuts," Bisignani said the industry needed 40 billion dollars "just to cover the cost of capital."
"The industry is moving in the right direction, but with 200 billion dollars of debt, the financial hole is deep. The challenge is to turn peanuts into sustainable profits," he said.
The latest financial forecasts for the sector confirmed a healthy recovery from the nosedive that followed the September 2001 attacks in the United States and soaring fuel prices, sinking the sector in more than 40 billion dollars in losses over the past six years.
IATA already had sharply revised upward its 2007 estimate in April, from 2.5 billion dollars, as a relatively robust global economy spurred tourism and airline transport.
IATA represents some 250 airlines which account for 94 per cent of scheduled international air traffic.
More than 150 airline chief executives as well as top management from airports, civil aviation authorities, manufacturers and non-governmental organisations are attending the three-day event, which ends today.
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