More evidence emerged on Tuesday that a bad economy pushes passengers to the back of the plane, as a trade group reported that traffic in the high-end airline seats fell 22 per cent in April.

Revenue from those passengers fell even faster, down an estimated 44 per cent from April 2008, the International Air Transport Association reported.

The number of travelers on coach tickets rose 0.3 per cent in April, which IATA said was an improvement over a 6.9 per cent decline for the first quarter.

IATA pointed out that Easter landed in April this year versus March last year. The shift probably cut into higher-priced business travel but boosted leisure travel, IATA said. The group estimated that the Easter shift accounted for 5 per centage points of the decline in April premium travel.

Drivers of air travel such as jobs growth and industrial production were still declining in most big economies during April, "which would suggest a floor for air travel has not yet been reached," the group wrote.

Air travel has become much cheaper in recent months, with economy fares down 15 per cent and premium fares down more than 20 per cent, IATA said. That's because airlines are discounting tickets to try to keep them from going unsold.

Premium traffic in Europe fell 33.6 per cent versus April 2008. Premium traffic within North America was down 16.5 per cent, and traffic from Europe to Asia fell 26.4 per cent.