This was also the fourth consecutive month with freight traffic growth above five per cent at 5.2 -- "the strongest sustained rally for freight traffic in a year," Giovanni Bisignani, IATA's director general and CEO said.
"It reflects strong economic prospects in fast developing India and China, a stronger outlook for US economic expansion and improving prospects for Europe," he said.
However, he observed that crude prices remained "the wild card" for industry profitability. A 25 per cent hike in fuel prices in the last two months imposed "an enormous burden" on the industry, which could suffer an estimated 2.2 billion dollar loss this year, Bisignani said.
The IATA figures showed that passenger load factor averaged 74.4 per cent, with the MiddlEastern carriers leading the growth with a 17.5 per cent increase in passenger and 16.6 per cent rise in cargo traffic.
The revenue passenger kilometres, which measure actual passenger traffic, grew by 6.2 per cent in Asia Pacific last month, while the passenger load factor stood at 74.5 per cent in the region, compared with March 2005.