Growing Evidence That The Upturn Is Upon Us

[nich-av]

Imagine if you will that a couple of Spanish airlines go bust this winter. Not a difficult thing to do given their crashing economy, slumping housing market and rocketing unemployment. Do you think those hundreds of experienced, jet rated pilots will:

You are trying to associate the edgy situation at Vueling, Clickair and Spanair to the recession? They have been in a bad shape since long before the recession and so has been Iberia.
Vueling's share trading was suspended last year and now they have merged with Clickair to form a stronger partnership.

Your arguments of the recession destroying these airlines does not hold, they were destroying themselves long before the recession started.

Similarily, the argument that Italy is entering a recession is disturbing as Italy has been flirting with recession for the past 6 years and has gotten into one several times during that period.

The economies of Germany, France and Italy all contracted in the first quarter and may now be in full recession, shattering assumptions that Europe would prove able to shrug off the effects of the credit crunch.

That's a lie right there.

France's economic growth accelerated more than economists forecast in the first quarter as stronger exports more than offset weaker consumer spending. Gross domestic product in the euro region's second-largest economy expanded 0.6 percent from the previous quarter, when it grew 0.3 percent, national statistics office Insee said today in Paris. On a year on year basis the economy grew by 2.2% when compared with the first quarter of 2007.

france+GDP+2.jpg (image)

German economic growth accelerated to the fastest pace in 12 years in the first quarter as companies stepped up spending on machinery and construction. Gross domestic product rose 1.5 percent from the fourth quarter, when it increased 0.3 percent, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said today. That's the highest quarterly growth rate since the second quarter of 1996.

german+GDP+2.jpg (image)

FRANKFURT, Germany, July 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Frankfurt Airport (FRA) recorded noticeable growth in the first half of 2008. From January through June some 26,265,335 passengers used the FRA global air
transportation hub - 2.2 percent more than in the same period last year.
Airfreight throughput at Germany's largest airport reached 1,047,681 metric tons in the first six months of 2008 - representing a 3.8 percent rise.
The number of aircraft movements at FRA in the same period remained
nearly unchanged at 241,646 takeoffs and landings. In contrast, accumulatedmaximum takeoff weights (MTOWs) continued to climb strongly by 2 percent to 14,056,442 metric tons. In view of FRA's capacity constraints, this development again reflected the trend - seen for many months - toward an increasing use of bigger aircraft on the available slots.
With 4,807,710 passengers served in June 2008 (-0.5 percent), activity
reached nearly the high previous year's level. At the same time, FRA recorded its busiest-ever June for airfreight: 177,520 metric tons handled in the reporting month represented a rise of 0.9 percent on the previous June record in 2007. In keeping with expectations, airmail declined by 4.1 percent to7,178 metric tons.
The number of aircraft movements at FRA remained steady in June: 41,994 takeoffs and landings represented a slight 0.2 percent year-on-year drop.
Nonetheless, accumulated MTOWs continued to climb in June to the new historic high of 2,442,379 metric tons, exceeding the previous record-June in 2007 by 1.1 percent.
The Fraport Group's six majority-owned airports registered a total of
36,624,192 passengers in the first two quarters of 2008 - 3.7 percent more than in the comparable period last year.
Antalya and Lima airports achieved the highest growth rates: Peru's Lima Airport (LIM) welcomed 3,970,741 passengers (up 14.6 percent) from January to June. Fraport's terminals at Antalya Airport (AYT) served 3,637,242 passengers, 9.5 percent more than in the same period in 2007. The summer travel surge also boosted traffic at the Group's airports in Bulgaria: Burgas Airport (BOJ) rose 0.6 percent to 485,533 passengers, while Varna (VAR) reported 444,070 passengers (up 2.7 percent) in the first half year. Only Frankfurt-Hahn Airport (HHN) registered a 5.8 percent drop to 1,823,852 passengers compared to the first half of 2007.
Cargo throughput at the Group's airports climbed 6.1 percent to 1,250,146 metric tons of airfreight and airmail in the first six months of 2008. In addition, aircraft movements at Frankfurt, Frankfurt-Hahn, Lima, Antalya, Burgas and Varna airports increased by 3 percent to 348,915 takeoffs and landings.
Print-quality photos of Frankfurt Airport and Fraport AG are available
free for downloading via the Internet at Fraport AG - Homepage (Menu: select Press Center > then Photo Service). For TV news and information broadcasting purposes only, we also offer free footage material for downloading via fraport.cms-gomex.com. ANR 25/2008 - July 11, 2008

Some people are full of crap, and that pisses me off big time.