IATA expects airline profits to hit $18bn in 2014

The International Air Transport Association said on Monday that it expects airline companies to record combined net profits of $18 billion this year.
Revenues were forecast to reach $746 billion, IATA director general Tony Tyler said in Doha, pointing out that net margins stood to average 2.4 percent only.
"It sounds impressive. But the brutal economic reality is on revenues of $746 billion dollars we will earn an average net margin of just 2.4 percent," he said.
This amounted to less than $6 per passenger, added Tyler, who was speaking at an IATA-organised annual conference of the airline industry in the Qatari capital.
"The good news is that airline profits are improving. The average return on invested capital today is 5.4 percent -- up from 1.4 percent in 2008," said Tyler.
"But we are still far from earning the 7-8 percent cost of capital that investors would expect," he added, according to AFP.