BERLIN, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- Germany's second-largest airline company Air Berlin said Monday that its passenger volume decreased 3.9 percent during 2009 as a result of the global economic crisis.

    Air Berlin transported a total of 27.9 million passengers over the whole year of 2009, slumping from 29 million in 2008, according to the company.

    "One of the reasons for this decline is that the accumulated capacity was reduced by 2.6 percent," the Berlin-based company said.

    Despite the difficult market environment in 2009, its fleet capacity utilization, which measures how many flight seats are taken by passengers, reached 77.3 percent, a slight decline of one percentage point comparing with the previous year.

    However, as global economy showed signs of recovery, Air Berlin said the passenger volume in December hit 2 million, up 0.8 percent comparing with the corresponding month of 2008, and the fleet capacity utilization increased by 0.5 percentage points to 73.1 percent.