No. of passengers using regular domestic flights down 9.6%+

TOKYO, March 21 Kyodo -
The number of passengers on regular domestic flights in 2009 fell 9.6 percent
from the previous year to 83.95 million for the third straight yearly decline,
the transport ministry said Sunday.
The yearly drop was the largest since 1987, when the current counting system
was introduced, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport
and Tourism.
While the number of passengers was lower than 2008 in every month in the
reporting year, a ministry official said, ''Under the prolonged economic slump,
business trips fell drastically and people refrained from traveling to remote
areas by using airplanes.''
The ministry also said the route between Tokyo's Haneda airport and New Chitose
airport near Sapporo was the most popular one, attracting 9.03 million
passengers.
Meanwhile, the number of passengers boarding Japanese airlines' international
flights last year fell for the second straight year, down 6.3 percent to 15.39
million, the ministry said.
The monthly number, however, exceeded that of last year since August, leading
the ministry official to comment, ''While the recovering trend remains weak,
the stagnation in international flights seems to have bottomed out.''
==Kyodo
2010-03-21 21:12:06