Well after reading the BA press release last week it seems that oil at 120 dollars spells the end to normal operations in the airline world. So the question I guess, is will governments take over the Legacy carriers again?
In the low cost game, obviously those with the lowest costs and the largest amount of cash in the bank will survive.
winners
1. anything from middle east oil rich countries
2. government backed national carriers(air france)
3. true low cost carriers (Ryanair)
4. the chinese
Losers
1. Legacy Carriers without government backing
2. Companies who pretend to be low cost but aren't
3. Charter
4. Commercial training schools (credit crunch)
Personaly I would expect a large number is failures during this part of the cycle and a number of consolidations.
For pilots though I would say the picture over the next 5 years is one of change but ultimately I think the credit crunch will restrict the number of "loans" available for new CPLs and therefore will restrict supply and increase our T & Cs at the succesful companies as they compete to keep their airframes working...