THE International Air Transport Association (Iata) has cut its global profit forecast by US$1 billion to US$18.7 billion for the airline industry in 2014, no thanks to higher fuel bills caused by the Ukrainian crisis.

"Some risks are quite obvious. The situation in the Ukraine is causing instability that is pushing up the price of oil. And that was the main negative driver of today's downwards revision," said the Geneva-based organisation's director general and chief executive Tony Tyler in a media briefing yesterday.

Still, based on the context of the industry's large revenues of some US$745 billion, he described the revision as a "tweak" than a substantial downgrade.