PJ2,
Thanks for a thoughtful and lucid explanation (your trademark, if you'll permit me to say so).
It occurs to me that there are some striking parallels between the symptoms that are now seen as pre-cursors of the financial crisis and the indicators present in the passenger air transport industry:
robust, external regulation replaced by weaker or self-regulation; aggressive marketing; 'too good to be true' offers; quantity not quality attitudes; prudence and caution displaced or distorted by self-interest and short-termism.
I'm sure there are others I haven't identified.
Signs of an industry that, if not in crisis, is heading the wrong way.