There's nothing wrong with a hint of positivity and Alex your factual points are well made and pertinent, thanks for your continued input.
Yield is of course the key. With every airline seeing profits slump and their share prices decimating perhaps there is little comfort in increasing load factors and seat capacity at a few airlines. I would love to take great comfort in it, but frankly, I don't.
I genuinely do not want those that provide the glass half full side of the this debate to feel embattled and unwanted. You're not. Whilst I'm pretty sure of my position that this is going to be worse than the 1990-1993 airline miasma there are major differences to the industry this time and its not a foregone conclusion. Every recession probably looks like the worst one ever at the onset. There probably is no need to go out and buy land and guns and start digging.
In the medium term torrid recessions are good as they act like a forest fire and create space for the strong trees to come back and thrive more vigorously. Undoubtably we will lose some airlines but that will make the business models of those that remain much more viable in the longer run. With low barriers to entry and near instant price discovery this industry has for the last several decades seen businesses furiously fighting over the last 1% of the market. The result of that fight has been the massively deteriorated terms and conditions for those newly joining airlines.
They key point for wannabes is not to go for a picnic in the forest whilst the fire rages. Come back in just a couple of years and things will be growing back furiously and all will be beautiful. Whilst the fire rampages its all ugly and terrifying.
WWW