As I said, I'm on the other side of the Irish sea, and the Irish economy is pretty spectacularly derailing at the moment, our unemployment number is at the highest level (6.1%) in a long time, construction jobs which account for a disproportionate share of the Irish economy relative to most industrial nations has experienced a 15% loss of employment in a year, and car sales have fallen off the edge of a cliff. Government tax receipts are now €6bn under budget, the welfare bill is heading North and the Government have brought forward the Budget by three months to try and, depending on your point of view, bully the social partners into a pay pause, or inject some realism into national pay discussions.
So maybe the pax numbers i'm seeing are just reflecting circumstances which are particular to the Irish market, where loads ARE down, but I very much doubt it.
Granted, the Irish circumstances may be more acute than those the UK are experiencing but I wouldn't take too much comfort from the Ryanair August number.
I heard a radio headline that Ryanair numbers were up 19% alright but I didn't hear what the yields were and I don't know the Easyjet numbers but the Ryanair load factor was also down and how much of this is new capacity that didn't exist last year?
BA, who wouldn't be adding routes or airframes at the rate that Ryanair are said August traffic was down 1.6% in August and the load factor was also down 2.7% to 77%.
Last time I watched Sky news Alistair Darling was saying that the UK economic situation wasn't exactly rosy, and the markets have been giving the pound sterling a reasonably significant write down vis a vis the Euro and more notably the dollar, based on the fact that they concur with the Chancellors assessment.
I think that the winter will prove me right when I say pax are choosing not to travel. I would guess that a lot of August volume is people on annual or semi annual holidays and would have been booked well in advance. I would say that forward bookings aren't running at 20% year on year volume growth and I would say that they are showing a decline although I don't know this.
It is my opinion that over the course of the winter there will have to be significant capacity taken out of the market because there will be fewer passengers who want to travel.
I'm more interested in what the November 08 and January 09 numbers are going to be like compared to the corresponding period 12 months ago. As I said already, forward bookings may take some time to "wash out."