First read this:
SINGAPORE: The global airline industry will take at least three years to recover after the worst recession in six decades hurt travel demand,
said Giovanni Bisignani, CEO of the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The airline industry globally lost $50 billion in the past 10 years, with $11 billion in 2009 alone. Revenues declined by $80 billion last year, Bisignani said.
“These numbers are really shocking,” Bisignani said. “We’ve had a terrible 10 years. It would take at least three years to recover the level of growth we have lost.” Airlines worldwide suffered the worst drop in passenger demand since World War II last year, IATA said on January 27. The global travel slump has pushed carriers including Singapore Airlines and British Airways into losses and forced Japan Airlines to file for bankruptcy.
Traffic dropped 3.5% last year, with declines exceeding 5% in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region, said IATA, which represents 230 carriers.
The economic slump and credit crisis have cost carriers 2 ½ years of growth in passenger markets and 3 ½ years in freight, so that 2010 will be ‘another spartan year’ of cost controls and capacity caps, Bisignani had said earlier.
British Airways expects a ‘bigger loss’ in the 12 months ending March 31 than it had in fiscal 2009, chairman Martin Broughton said on January 25. Singapore Air, the world’s second-largest carrier by market value, may have its first annual loss as a publicly-traded company, the carrier said in July. Japan Air this month became Asia’s first major flag carrier to seek bankruptcy protection after four government bailouts failed to revive it. More airlines will go bankrupt, Bisignani said today. About 34 carriers have gone out of business since 2008, according to IATA.
Passenger yield, or the average price a traveller pays to fly one kilometre, will remain “flat” this year and increase only next year, Bisignani said.
Globally, airlines will probably post losses totaling $5.6 billion this year, the trade group had estimated. That’s about half of last year’s estimated $11 billion deficit.
While the industry’s worst loss to date was almost $13 billion in 2001 following the September 11 terror attacks, an $80 billion revenue decline last year was “vastly bigger” than anything previously experienced, according to IATA Chief Economist Brian Pearce.
And then read this utter garbage from the retarded UNITE dinosaurs:
Unite cabin crew members at British Airways are currently being balloted for a second time in a long running dispute over their jobs and working conditions.
During this dispute, the cabin crew and their case have been seriously misrepresented, which is why Unite has produced a short film to put the voice of staff across.
This film seeks to present the real issues behind this dispute – the low wages of many, the stress of working under imposition and the distress caused to a dedicated workforce when they are hindered in providing a professional service.
Contrary to the picture painted in parts of the media, BA cabin crew are not militant, over-paid or underworked, as this film shows. They voted overwhelmingly for industrial action in December because they care about the future of the airline. And they are prepared to make sacrifices. Nearly a year ago, in April 2009, Unite offered the company a way to save £100million through changes and a two-year pay freeze. Instead of working with their own employees to find a way forward, BA imposed changes to the crew’s contracts of employment.
A management that governs by imposition is not a management that will prosper. And for our members across the UK, a very dangerous precedent is being set if BA can get away with imposing changes to the terms and conditions of its cabin crew.
BA is our national flag carrier. We expect the best from it as an employer just as it must provide the best service to its passengers. As we continue to press BA to make every effort to resolve this dispute, we urge you to take a few moments to listen to our members speak, and discover for yourself the truth behind their concerns.
Derek Simpson
Tony Woodley
Still the same old lies and still the same weak excuses.
Notice how the 150 million, then 175 million, is now 100 million? Notice how the pay CUT has now become a pay FREEZE?
This union is absolutely full of
I hope BA goes for their throat.