Diverging. .(air passenger, air freight industries on divergent tracks)(Editorial)

Just as U.S. bombs started raining down on Baghdad last month, airlines around the world canceled hundreds of flights to the Middle East and the International Civil Aviation Organization announced alternative routes to take commercial aircraft around the troubled Gulf region. For air carriers, however, navigating around the financial fallout won't be nearly as easy.

The decline in passenger travel that accelerated during the buildup toward the Iraq war last month has been going on, more or less, for nearly two years now. Decisions such as that of Singapore Airlines to cancel 65 weekly flights, including routes to the United States and Europe, were the latest in a …