Several Asian airlines are to launch a global advertising campaign to encourage travellers to take to the skies again.

Airlines across the globe were struggling even before the terrorist attacks on 11 September and Monday's American Airline crash in New York has made the situation facing the industry even worse.

Airline shares in China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea fell by between 1% and 5% in response to the plane crash. Tourism and plane parts makers were also hit.

The marketing idea originally came from Singapore Airlines, although individual airlines would not be featured on the advertisements, Tom Ballantyne for Orient Aviation Magazine told the BBC's World Business report.

Aims and strategy

"It involves passengers being involved at airports saying they had just flown in from around the world, and they had a great flight," he said.

The campaign aims to "restore confidence in the fact that two or three million people travel by air everyday and nothing happens to them," he said, as well as emphasising the benefits of air transport for business traffic - an area badly hit by the recent crisis.

The campaign, to be launched in January, will run on television, in magazines and newspapers.

Initially the campaign is to be limited to the Asia-Pacific region, but airline chiefs want it to become global eventually.

Tom Ballantyne said this concept is supported by the International Air Transport Association - which represents more than 250 airlines around the world - and by aircraft manufacturers.

Boeing is itself planning an advertising campaign which is to be launched in the US and then extended to the rest of the world.