SPURT IN AIR TRAFFIC INCREASE PLANE VULNERABILITY

More travelers are flying than ever before, creating a daunting challenge for airlines: keep passengers safe in an ever more crowded airspace. Each day, 8.3 million people around the globe -- roughly the population of New York City -- step aboard an airplane. They almost always land safely. Some flights, however, are safer than others. The accident rate in Africa, for instance, is nearly five times that of the worldwide average, according to the International Civil Aviation Organization, part of the United Nations. Such trouble spots also happen to be where air travel is growing the fastest, putting the number of fliers on course to double within the next 15 years. "In some areas of the world, there's going to be a learning curve," says Patrick Smith, a commercial airline pilot for 24 years and author of "Cockpit Confidential." But that doesn't necessarily mean that the skies are going to become more dangerous. "We've already doubled the volume of airplanes and passengers and what's happened is we've gotten safer." To meet the influx of passengers, airlines will need to hire and train enough qualified pilots and mechanics. Governments will have to develop and enforce safety regulations. New runways with proper navigation aids will have to be constructed. Industry experts acknowledge the difficulties, but note that aviation has gone through major growth spurts before and still managed to improve safety along the way. Last year, 3.1 billion passengers flew, twice the total in 1999. Yet, the chances of dying in a plane crash were much lower. Since 2000, there were less than three fatalities per 10 million passengers, according to an Associated Press analysis of crash data provided by aviation consultancy Ascend. In the 1990s, there were nearly eight; during the 1980s there were 11; and the 1970s had 26 deaths per 10 million passengers. The last two weeks have been bad for aviation with the shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines flight followed by separate crashes in Taiwan and Mali. But the rare trio of tragedies represents just a fraction of the 93,500 daily airline flights worldwide. "Aviation safety is continuing to get better. A sudden spate of accidents doesn't mean that the industry has suddenly become less safe," says Paul Hayes, director of air safety for Ascend.