Up to 400,000 jobs may have been lost throughout the global civil aviation industry as a result of the September 11 attacks.
The claim is made in a report being presented today to a meeting of governments, employers and workers on civil aviation in Geneva and organised by the International Labour Organisation, is by academics at Cardiff University.
They have undertaken a closer analysis of consequent employment fall-out within the industry following the September 11 atrocities.
The researchers at the University's Cardiff Business School conclude even more jobs would have been lost if redundancy and early retirement programmes were not so costly.
Report author Professor Peter Turnbull said: "Airlines seem to be exploiting current difficulties to push through more radical cost-cutting programmes than is strictly warranted, often without proper consultation with the workforce."
Almost 100,000 job losses were announced by North American carriers within weeks of the terrorist attacks.
It was estimated that initial job losses in Europe were around 30,000.
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