November 18 (SeeNews) - Croatia Airlines, the country's flag carrier, said its loss widened to 94 million kuna ($19 million/12.8 million euro) in the first nine months of 2009 from 22 million kuna loss a year earlier.
The airline industry is experiencing one of the most difficult years in the history of international air transport, Croatia Airlines said in a statement posted on the website of the Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE).
The number of passengers that Croatia Airlines carried in the first nine months of 2009 fell to 1.387 million from 1.469 million a year earlier.
The Association of European Airlines (AEA) forecasts are that European airline industry will end this year with 22 million passengers below plan, a loss of $11 billion, and 35.000 lay-offs in the AEA member airlines, the statement said.
(1 euro = 7.3163 Croatian kuna)