They will operate 2.4m flights and 289.9m seats, down 122,000 and 9.8m respectively year-on-year, make March the eighth successive month of declines.
OAG said Europe continued to see sharp cutbacks both within and to/from the region, with frequency declines of 4.1% or 23,600 flights and 3.1% or 2,845 respectively.
Capacity has been cut by 4.3% or 2.9m seats on intra-regional flights and by 2.8% or 588,200 seats on routes to and from outside Europe.
The US bore the brunt of domestic frequency cutbacks this month, with a decline of 76,164 flights, while the UK saw the biggest drop in international frequencies, of 9,920 flights.
The two countries also saw the steepest capacity cuts. There were 6.5m fewer US domestic seats and 1.67m fewer international seats to/from the UK offered this month.
In the first quarter of 2009 OAG said the number of flights worldwide declined by 6.7% or 491,000, the first downturn in Q1 figures since 2002 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Capacity for the quarter has fallen by 4.4%, representing 38.6m fewer seats.
Click here to see the March and Q1 2009 figures in full.
See also:
Air traffic falls at greater rate than capacity cuts (18/02/2009)
Airlines identifying new market opportunities (10/10/2008)
Transatlantic capacity falls by 2.9% (08/10/2008)
OAG: air industry ‘pushed to limits’ (06/08/2008)