The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Thursday that international passenger demand declined by 9.3 percent in May this year compared with the same month of last year

The figure weakened from the 3.1 percent decline in April, but stronger than the 11.1 percent decrease in March, according to an IATA statement available here.

"This indicates that a floor may now have been reached," the IATA said.

May was the first full month to feel the impact of the A/H1N1 flu on travel, with Mexican carriers seeing a traffic fall of almost 40 percent in May, according to the association which represents some 230 airlines comprising 93 percent of scheduled international air traffic.

Latin American carriers saw their traffic decline by 9.2 percent in May compared to the previous year.

Asia Pacific carriers recorded a 14.3 percent fall in demand, while North American carriers posted a 10.9 percent fall, considerably worse than the 4.2 percent fall in April.

Middle Eastern carriers bucked the declining trend with 9.5 percent growth in demand and a 14.5 percent expansion of capacity, the IATA said.

Freight demand went down by 17.4 percent in May this year against the same month of last year, the IATA said. The 17.4 percent decline in international cargo demand was a relative improvement compared to the 21.7 percent drop in April.

"This is one of the first physical signs of the economic recovery being anticipated in equity markets," the IATA said.

Since December 2008, cargo demand has been moving sideways in the range of around negative 20 percent, it said.

"We may have hit bottom, but we are a long way from recovery," IATA's Director General Giovanni Bisignani said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 26, 2009)