Originally Posted by
Fuel-Off
People also forget that aviation actually prospered during the Great Depression of the 1930s. New airlines created with considerable amount of capital being spent on new aircraft orders while most of the rest of the world's economies walked a slow death march..........................................Fuel-Off
Can you provide a link that will support that? I've googled various versions for airlines during that period and got very little.
Anyway, my take on your assertion without having any historical material to go off. What may be the reason for your "
People also forget that aviation actually prospered during the Great Depression of the 1930s" claim, is because maybe your data skews the outlook to that rosy claim because that is the era when airline travel took off, so off a low base whereas today we're talking about a very mature market, such that an airline seat is now a commodity like a loaf of bread and very sensitive to price. Pax numbers (when reviewing airport numbers from around the world) have doubled in 8-10 yrs (8 for the M.E. 3) and more so if you look at the last 30 yrs, while in the west households are heavily indebted (Aust. #2 or 3 in the world) with wages stagnant for the past decade while house prices have boomed. Globalisation has been good for executive pay and extremely wealthy individuals, but for the west the result has been cheaper prices for consumer crap and the massive loss of jobs that started with manufacturing that's has progressively moved up the food chain. Ask anyone in IT what their real wages are like compared to a decade ago, noticed those tax kiosks around the EOFY time at shopping centres? Meanwhile Atlasssian are busy bringing visa workers (so called Skilled Workers on 50+k) into Australia for around high 50s with 5+ yrs experience, a pay level that would equate to a new grad here. Ask a nurse grad if she / he can find work.... yeah nah..... too many visa nurses from Asia already trained.
Imo I think we have seen the best of times and it's likely to be a downhill ride for the next decade. I have a few yrs to go before retirement, but in general I've been bloody lucky and don't believe I've worked any harder than anyone else, street sweeper or whatever and I worry about what is being left behind for those coming through, by this this I mean every field of work, not just aviation.
Good luck, because imo you're going to need it.