Freight traffic growth for international airlines slowed to 4.1 percent increase in June over a year earlier, as traffic picked up in Europe and Africa but slowed in Asia and actually declined for the first time this year in Latin America, an industry trade group said.

Giovanni Bisignani, director general of Geneva, Switzerland-based International Air Transport Association, said freight performance for its 291 member passenger and cargo airlines was "disappointing" last month, and had dropped after 5.1 percent growth in May. That left first-half 2006 freight traffic 5.1 percent ahead of the same point last year.

The big North American market grew 6.3 percent in the latest month, just slightly behind its overall first-half pace, while Europe's freight traffic increased a bit to 2.4 percent in June. Freight continued a robust growth pace of 19.2 percent in the Middle East, nearly matching its first-half rate.

But airlines said their Asia-Pacific freight tonne kilometers increased just 2.3 percent in June from the 2005 month, well behind the 4.8 percent growth for that region in the entire January-June period.

Among smaller freight markets, Africa's FTKs surged 9.8 percent in June and grew 5.6 percent for the six months.

But Latin America's freight fell 2.5 percent last month, leaving first-half growth at 4 percent. Cargo sources have said exports out of Latin America have been declining in recent months, and June also saw the once dominant Brazilian airline Varig sharply cut back operations pending a July fire sale to avoid liquidation.

Bisignani said June airline passenger traffic, meanwhile, grew 6. 5 percent and "continued the pattern of strong and stable growth seen over the past 18 months." And he said "the revenue environment is strong."

But he warned that high oil prices would cost airlines about $112 billion this year, and that current Mideast turmoil "does not bode well for a price drop any time soon." Bisignani also urged "the oil industry to move faster at developing alternative fuels to further improve efficiency and environmental performance" for airlines.

An IATA spokesman said the group had no particular alternative in mind to jet fuel, but suggested biofuels or synthetics could be more feasible with oil prices so high. And the industry has begun considering such fuels as a way to mitigate growing concern, especially in Europe, about the pollution effects of burning jet fuel at high altitudes.

John D. Boyd