KUALA LUMPUR - The global airline industry is expected to lose US$9.0 billion (S$13.1 billion) this year, industry association IATA said Monday, nearly doubling its earlier forecast.

The International Air Transport Association said the latest figures reflected a "rapidly deteriorating revenue environment" due to the worldwide economic downturn.

"There is no modern precedent for today's economic meltdown. The ground has shifted. Our industry has been shaken," IATA chief Giovanni Bisignani said.

"This is the most difficult situation that the industry has faced," he said in a speech to industry leaders at the 65th IATA Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit in Kuala Lumpur.

The new projection is nearly double the 4.7 billion dollars in losses that IATA forecast in March.

The industry body also revised its loss estimate for 2008 to 10.4 billion dollars from its previous estimate of 8.5 billion dollars.

Bisignani said the impact of the current global financial and economic crisis is worse than that of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

In the aftermath of the 2001 attacks in New York, global airline revenues tumbled by 7.0 per cent and it took three years for the industry to recover despite a strong global economy, he said.

"This time we face a 15 per cent drop - a loss of revenues of 80 billion US dollars - in the middle of a global recession," he said.

"Our future depends on a drastic reshaping by partners, governments and industry. We cannot bear the cost of government micro-regulation, crazy taxation and partners abusing their monopoly power."

The airline industry has been among the worst hit by the economic crisis, which struck in the third quarter of last year, as people cut back on their travel plans. -AFP