Airlines better pray the Eurozone crisis doesn’t blow up

• Asia-Pacific carriers also saw stronger though varied trading conditions. Japan’s domestic market still has not fully recovered from the March earthquake and tsunami, and load factors remain under pressure. By contrast airlines have improved load factors and profitability on China’s expanding domestic market. We have upgraded our forecast for the region by $800 million to a $3.3 billion profit. This is the largest absolute profit among the regions.

• Asia-Pacific carriers are expected to deliver the largest absolute profit at $2.1 billion. This is weaker than 2011’s performance but the deterioration is limited by high load factors on markets such as China, where the increases in demand are structural and to some extent shielded from the cycle.