The news for most airlines remains bad but at least it's getting better for some. Airlines are welcoming small hints of a recovery with the release of passenger numbers for April. However, with slight relief comes a lingering trepidation over what could possibly happen next that no airline can seem to shake.

British Airways, Ryanair and easyJet all reported a slight increase in passenger numbers for April. In the U.S., only one major carrier, Southwest, saw traffic rise in April, but other airlines reported their smallest declines in eight months. Could this indicate that passengers are starting to return? Most airlines attribute the increase to a shift in reporting months for holidays such as Easter, which in 2008 was in March versus April of this year. Just about every carrier has chased what's left of the traveling public with aggressive fare sales that hurt the profit margins of the largest carriers the most. Major full service airlines are still battered by dwindling premium traffic from business travelers and the increase in passengers has mostly come from low-yield discount travelers. This has allowed single-class budget carriers to weather the storm a little better than their multi-class counterparts, but all airlines are wary of what's to come. The impact of the swine flu outbreak on travel has yet to be assessed and airlines fear that whatever passenger gains were made in April might be decimated by the end of May.