Let’s not forget that airlines employ professionals to look at the market and analyse trends.
They should have all hired WWW instead...
You'd think though the airlines would be aware of the cyclical nature of the industry... you get the impression they have very short memories.
You get an uptick in the economy, and then airlines go on these massive hiring and spending sprees as if it'll last forever, and then, inevitably, the economy goes into a bust cycle and next thing you know they're parking planes and laying off.
And the funny thing is they act like "we never saw this coming", but anyone with a history book can tell you the good times never last forever...
In fact, my view is that in aviation, in any given 10 year period of time, you seem to get 1 to 2 years that are really good, and then 8 years that vary between bad to super bad.
That seems to be the way it goes...
We've just begun the 8 year bad part...