J.O:
I can appreciate where you are coming from and do agree to a certain extent. 3 of my last 5 employers are no more, and I have first hand experience in seeing, how fast everything can go from appearing to be rosy red to lining up at the unemployment office. At this point I consider my self lucky every day I get up to find my self employed. That said..... Sunwing are using alot more airplanes this winter, sure. But it is not an expansion in a traditional airline sense. There are some new destinations, but I am pretty sure alot of the extra flying is due to incerased frequency to certain destinations. This would be based on package sales over the last few 6 - 12 months. Sunwing would have a pretty good idea of how many seats it will need to accomodate package sales in advance. That woulod govern how many crews and airplanes will be needed. I doubt they decided to double the fleet and hope for the best from the sales department.
On a different note it is nice to see oil closing below $100 again! I think XL and any other european vacation airline really felt the pain of increasing fuel prices in the spring early summer. In short, fuel prices jumped almost 50% just as the peak seson kicked in for the European vacation companies, while most packages where based on alot cheaper fuel. The Canadian vacation airlines might luck out a bit here as long as we do not see a nother dramatic jump in prices. I would venture to guess alot of package sales where based on $140 - 150 a barrel and now the prices have dropped. Lets hope they stay there for a while, for the sake of everyone in the aviation industry!!
RB