Scheduled airlines have cut flights by 4.9% this month, compared with March 2008.
This equates to a 3.3% drop in seat capacity, according to the latest statistics from OAG.
It is the eighth successive month that schedules have been reduced and represents a reduction of more than 122,000 flights and 9.8 million seats year on year.
The total number of flights scheduled to operate worldwide this month is 2.38 million, or 289.8 million seats.
Global airline schedules for the first quarter 2009 have dropped by 6.7%, or 491,000 fewer flights.
It is the first time quarter 1 figures have dropped since 2002, when the industry was absorbing the double impact of 9/11 terrorist and an economic meltdown from the burst of the dot.com bubble.
Capacity for this quarter also has fallen by 4.4%, representing a reduction of 38.6 million seats.
Within the US this month, domestic airline flight activity has dropped 9.2% overall, or 76,164 fewer flights, resulting in 6.5 million fewer seats.
The US low-cost sector is showing a year-on-year decrease for the month of just over 9% for both frequencies and capacity.
David Beckerman, VP market intelligence at OAG, said: "The OAG figures for March reveal a continuing slowdown in the global figures and on the key long-haul routes between North America and hubs in Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
“Asia is holding up much better with a marginal decline in frequencies and slight growth in intra-regional capacity, while the Middle East is bucking the global trend with comparatively healthy growth, especially for international operations.
“Europe continues to see sharp cutbacks on routes to, from and within the region, while Africa remains fairly stable compared with this time last year."
By Bev Fearis
