TOP 5 AIRLINES LACK BIKINI POWER

According to the Montreal, Canada based International Air Transport Association (IATA) annual economic report and forecast, which was issued on Tuesday, December 14, 2010, the trend in commercial airline dominance has already shifted to Asia and South America.
Unlike Mexicana, VivaAerobus, Russia's Avianova or Ireland's Ryanair, they haven't yet tried sexy calendars or videos to market their servies. What they do have going for them instead, are thriving economies, and in the case of China, a population of over one billion people. Brazil, while having a smaller market of only 190 million, shares the common Asian characteristic of being an economic dynamo.
Just add bikinis to that mixture, and they could easily corner the world's erotic calendar market, as illustrated by the attached Brazilian bikini pool party video.
Speaking at a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, IATA Chief Executive Giovanni Bisignani, said, "The world is changing in aviation, and it's changing very, very quickly. Rapidly developing markets are shifting the industry's center of gravity to the East."
Ranked by market capitalization, the total value of a company's publicly traded stock, these are the world's top five air carriers, along with their IATA codes:
01 - $20 billion - Air China (CA)
02 - $14 billion - Singapore Airlines (SQ)
03 - $12 billion - Cathay Pacific (CX) (Hong Kong)
04 - $11 billion - China Southern AIrlines (CZ)
05 - $11 billion - LATAM (formed from the merger of LAN Airlines (LA) (Chile) and TAM Airlines (JJ) (Brazil)
Delta Air Lines (DL) and Germany's Lufthansa (LH) follow, each with $10 billion in market worth.
IATA reported that the world's airlines will see net profits of $15.1 billion in 2010. This marks a huge turnaround from the $10 billion industry loss in 2009, and $16 billion loss in 2008. Airline profits for this year were much higher than the previously estimated $8.9 billion, which IATA had predicted last September. IATA forecasts net profits of $9.1 billion for the industry in 2011.
According to IATA chief economist Brian Pearce, "2011 is going to be a much more challenging period." Heavy debts and new taxes will drag down consumer travel spending in Europe and North America.
Although airline profit margins remain "pathetically low" and pose a threat to the industry in case of another economic shock, IATA, which represents some 230 carriers and 93 percent of scheduled air traffic, said the outlook is especially bright for Asia.
According to IATA CEO Giovanni Bisignani, "A rapidly expanding middle class in Asia and growing demand for air links between the continent's 15 mega-cities, each with over 10 million inhabitants, promise strong industry profits in the region." He also called airline business regulation in the United States "archaic ownership rules". If they were lifted, the industry might soon see the first takeover of a U.S. carrier by an Asian airline.
The aviation center of gravity seems to have permanently shifted to Asia and South America, as the Twentieth Century, which some had called the "American Century" fades into the past.