Geneva — Improving economies and robust travel demand will return global airlines to record profit in 2018, with fares also set to rise, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said. Overall profit is expected to rise 11% to $38.4bn in 2018, and the outlook is encouraging, IATA said on Tuesday as it raised its 2017 forecast to $34.5bn, up from an earlier $31.4bn estimate, but still lower than 2016. Of the $38.4bn, $27.9bn will come from North American and European airlines. "We are eight years into this air travel cycle, but we see no reason at present to expect that cyclical pattern to repeat itself," IATA chief economist Brian Pearce said, with reference to a trend that would usually indicate a major downturn was due. After declining for six years in a row, passenger yields, a measure of ticket pricing, are also expected to rise by 3% next year, after falling 1.5% in 2017. But not all the forecasts are so positive, with passenger demand measured in revenue passenger kil...
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