Perhaps you could stop whining long enough about nuts and juice to have a read of this.....
The structure of the world airline industry is going to change “profoundly”, Jean-Cyril Spinetta, chairman and chief executive of Air France-KLM, warned on Thursday, as carriers struggle to come to terms with a doubling of the oil price in the past 12 months and weakening economic growth.
“There will be major restructuring. Things are changing violently and quickly,” he said.
The outlines of the winners and losers in the latest global aviation crisis are already becoming clear at frightening speed.
The long-term survivors will be the airlines with already strong balance sheets, that are going into the storm with low debt levels and big cash reserves. Many of these have taken the opportunity offered by their financial strength to hedge a large part of their fuel requirements for the next 12 to 24 months.
Financially weaker airlines have been unable to afford such protective insurance.
Some, such as Ireland’s Ryanair, Europe’s leading low-cost carrier, chose to gamble that the oil price would fall back. It is now paying the price.
The winners will also be the carriers that have continued to invest in new aircraft and which therefore have the most fuel-efficient fleets. They include Ryanair and EasyJet, the dominant European low-cost carriers, and AirAsia, the low-cost leader in Asia Pacific.