Originally Posted by rogerg
Sometimes you just have to be optimistic and take a chance.
True, but when that "chance" involves six figures of debt, your parents' house on the line and what many airline CEOs say are the worst market conditions the industry has ever seen, it's a bit harder to be so optimistic.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion; mine is that it'd be foolish to stake so much on an integrated course right now. If integrated is for you, give it a year or so and see how things pan out in the industry.
Originally Posted by v6g
I would argue that the whole credit crunch is as a result of rising oil prices.
The oil price only really started to rocket seriously 9-10 months ago. The first signs of the impending "credit crunch", with all the stuff about the US sub-prime lending etc. happened quite a while before that. I know little about economics but I would argue that the oil price has been an unfortunate side effect of weak markets and weak currencies. Even if the oil price stabilises between $115-120, as it seems to be doing, the financial markets and the economy are still in bother. So what WWW says about house price crash = recession = far fewer people flying will probably turn out to be true. I hope it doesn't, but it probably will.