Sorry about the straight talk. Last year (2007) was the first year that the industry made a collective profit since 2000 (5.6 billion dollars US).By the way this was the year in which Harmony closed its doors. At 107 dollars per barrel the industry will swing back into loss (projected at 2.3 billion dollars US). For every dollar above this number costs increase 1.6 billion dollars US worldwide (for Air Canada a one dollar per barrel rise increases costs by 25 million dollars).
Whatever profits that have been made last year were in the end financed by a large contribution in labour savings given (taken from) by employees. Through a combination of wage reductions and pension annihilation (this is more the case in North America). And increases in IT efficiencies (at my airline reducing our counter staff by 50%), we have been able to keep the passengers coming. The limit has been reached with employees, and the business model that airlines have gotten used to is dead.
Our profession was not given a chance to get back some of these reductions because the recovery period has been unusually short. Where in the past our profession was considered on par with the better paying and appreciated jobs, it has now been downgraded to the status of truck drivers (or worse). The entry costs into the pilot profession is extremely steep, and is rising further every day. New hires at my airline are saddled with debts in excess of 200,000 Canadian Dollars (this is a Major airline in Europe). These kids ( are usually around 22 when they join up) and should do okay, as my airline will be one of the ones that will survive and is one of the few that has been able to retain some semblance of the past pay and conditions. It is grim out there. Punch in “regional pilot” on youtube and you will get to see a horror movie about the regional pay levels in the USA.
All this is way of topic from Harmony, I would be very surprised to see them back (they flew one of our old 767’s), maybe the family is loaded, but they did not get that way by flushing money down the drain. The score so far in 2008 is 133 airlines worldwide having seized operations (that is as of June 24, 2008 06:45 a.m. eastern standard time). And overnight United Airlines has announced that 950 of its pilots will be let go. This is only the beginning.
Having all these very experienced pilots out there on the market will drive the terms and conditions for our profession downwards, not only domestically but also abroad for the contract pilots.