TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- The International Air Transport Association (IATA) plans to push next week for aggressive industry deregulation since governments and airports had not done enough to improve efficiency, its head said on Thursday.
IATA Director General Giovanni Bisignani said the group of 265 airlines would propose further deregulation at its annual meeting in Tokyo on Monday and Tuesday.
"We see too many inefficiencies ... we, the customers, are not any more ready to pay for their inefficiencies," he told a news conference.
World passenger traffic grew 8.7 percent in the first four months of 2005, but the growth has not translated into profitability due to skyrocketing fuel costs.
Over regulation, inefficiencies at airports and air-navigation service providers had marred efforts to cut costs, says IATA, which coordinates aviation rules and standards.
"Airlines moved fast after Sept. 11, re-engineering, restructuring. But governments have not played a role," Bisignani said.
The airline industry, reeling since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, expects an industry loss this year of $5.5 billion as carriers battle against soaring fuel costs, IATA said in April.
Benchmark U.S. light crude prices reached a record of close to $60 a barrel just last month. They have slipped since then but popped back above $50 on Friday.
Airlines lost $4.8 billion last year.
Bisignani described an expected 20 percent cut in landing charges at Narita Airport, privatised in April 2004, as "reasonable and fair."
Narita Airport, with the world's highest landing charges of 2,400 yen ($22.22) per tonne, is expected to propose the 20 percent cut in charges to IATA in June.
IATA last year launched a massive cost-cutting programme, aiming to introduce e-ticketing systems, self-service kiosks for check-in and bar-coded boarding passes, among others.
Airlines are now flying Airbus 380s and Boeing 787s, Bisignani said, not the DC-3s in use when IATA was founded 60 years ago.
"But the rules of the game, the rules of this industry, are still the rules that we had when we were flying the DC-3s," he said.
