Lets face it, Europe is in a long term decline. The Euro has tanked, several countries are headed down the toilet at a rate of knots and the oil price will only go in one direction over the next few years. Any pickup in activity will cause a hike in fuel prices and probably tip a few more carriers over the edge. This industry was built up on the back of cheap oil. It is not running out, but the easy (read cheap) to extract reserves are pretty much finished. Offshore and Arctic reserves are under huge political and environmental pressure which translate directly into higher prices.
The only countries that can run expanding aviation sectors are those with significant reserves in their own back yards. In other words the Middle East. Exports will be limited to those with the ability to pay, China and other Asian economies. That's where the growth and jobs are and where they will remain until some bright spark finds another way of filling the tanks. Not much sign of that either.
The result will, I believe, be a decline in discretionary flying over the next 10 to 15 years. The rich, the governments and the military will still fly but the age of cheapo weekends in Prague is on the way out. Even Ryanair can only give flights away and sell scratch cards for so long. I reckon most Airline managers realise this and are engaged in a race to the bottom in order to extract every last cent from the businesses before they become hopelessly uneconomic and shut up shop. Hence the rise of pay to fly, the constant erosion of pay and conditions and the series of hopeless strike actions we are now seeing starting.
I'm glad that I got some flying in before it all started to turn to poo and I can only wonder at the thought processes of those taking on 100K+ debts for 6 months slavery in an industry with little future in the medium term.
Rather them than me.
Last edited by northern boy; 1st Jun 2010 at 16:33.