Growing Evidence That The Upturn Is Upon Us

[Vin Diesel]

As I said, I'm on the other side of the Irish sea, and the Irish economy is pretty spectacularly derailing at the moment, our unemployment number is at the highest level (6.1%) in a long time, construction jobs which account for a disproportionate share of the Irish economy relative to most industrial nations has experienced a 15% loss of employment in a year, and car sales have fallen off the edge of a cliff. Government tax receipts are now €6bn under budget, the welfare bill is heading North and the Government have brought forward the Budget by three months to try and, depending on your point of view, bully the social partners into a pay pause, or inject some realism into national pay discussions.

So maybe the pax numbers i'm seeing are just reflecting circumstances which are particular to the Irish market, where loads ARE down, but I very much doubt it.

Granted, the Irish circumstances may be more acute than those the UK are experiencing but I wouldn't take too much comfort from the Ryanair August number.

I heard a radio headline that Ryanair numbers were up 19% alright but I didn't hear what the yields were and I don't know the Easyjet numbers but the Ryanair load factor was also down and how much of this is new capacity that didn't exist last year?

BA, who wouldn't be adding routes or airframes at the rate that Ryanair are said August traffic was down 1.6% in August and the load factor was also down 2.7% to 77%.

Last time I watched Sky news Alistair Darling was saying that the UK economic situation wasn't exactly rosy, and the markets have been giving the pound sterling a reasonably significant write down vis a vis the Euro and more notably the dollar, based on the fact that they concur with the Chancellors assessment.

I think that the winter will prove me right when I say pax are choosing not to travel. I would guess that a lot of August volume is people on annual or semi annual holidays and would have been booked well in advance. I would say that forward bookings aren't running at 20% year on year volume growth and I would say that they are showing a decline although I don't know this.

It is my opinion that over the course of the winter there will have to be significant capacity taken out of the market because there will be fewer passengers who want to travel.

I'm more interested in what the November 08 and January 09 numbers are going to be like compared to the corresponding period 12 months ago. As I said already, forward bookings may take some time to "wash out."

[SVoa]

Hey folks

Easyjet and Ryanairs passenger numbers are rising. At the airport I work at, EZY has 8 flights a day, and on weekends they have 9 flights. Each flight comes in with a 90% load factor at least. However this is due to the fact that EZY, when the fuel crisis kicked in, decided that they would chase load factors in order to keep their shares up. EZY have lots of cash in their pocket so they can afford to be less profitable for a year or two, in the interest of keeping high load factors on their flights. Other airlines decided to add fuel surcharges and their load factors have gone down. Same goes for Ryanair, they decided to cover the losses in other ways (grounding a/c, no bonuses for management.... etc..)

To get back on the topic, I dont understand why people are freaking out about this. Speaking to some older friends, who were doing their CPL's during the early/mid 1990's, they were telling me how difficult it was to find a job then. Then there were literally half the airlines there are today, and options for finding a job were SEVERLY limited in many parts of Europe. Now the only problem is the investment. However, I believe there is an upturn and there has been for years now. Two low cost airlines in Europe need about 400 pilots each in 2009 to cover their expansion plans... I dont think that has happened before... You have more bizzjet and pvtjet jobs available than ever before, and now many airlines in Europe give jet jobs to youngsters with 250hrs! That was a dream come true before 2000. Chin up people. Follow your dream and be flexible...

SVoa

[Adios]

Very few airlines will be paying double for fuel this Christmas season. Some may have hedged and locked themselves into futures contracts at higher prices. It just may turnout that O'Leary's gamble to not hedge will help Ryanair a bit this winter, though he undoubtedly bled a lot of cash this summer. At least he had it to bleed.

I still took my holiday and everyone I know took theirs too this summer. I even paid a bit more to go on BA, as Ryanair's ridiculous baggage limits (15kg max in the hold) were totally unsuitable for the amount of kit needed for a longish holiday.

Double fuel prices and only a 2.7% drop in yield says it all; the European summer holiday is sacrosanct. I suspect the winter sun or ski breaks will be too.

[conerted_lurker]

:hmm: What drugs are you on exactly? :bored:


EZY shares have crashed by more than half so the strategy you believe they have clearly isn't good. RYR the same and both top bosses saying there is a disaster afoot!

There may be double the airlines now but there are three times the wannabes and all we care about it getting a job against the competition for that job. You think the only problem is investment (reckless debt accretion) rather than actual jobs? Are you licking the windows mad? The jobs have all dried up, nobody is hiring and 26 airlines have gone bust so far and Autumn isn't even here yet!

Which 2 loco airlines need 400 pilots for next year or is that just the acid kicking in? Biz-jets are rapidly falling on their arse as anyone in NetJets will tell you. v Who are you? Are you a flying instructor or school owner?

As Vin Diesel points out unemployment in Ireland is above 6% and in Spain it is above 10% and in both it is rising quickly, just like in the USA. The same will happen here and once that happens the worst house price crash ever will actually accelerate. :yuk:

This time last year the media and politicians told you that half of what already has happened wouldn't. They are now crapping themselves about the half that is going to happen that you don't even know about yet.:sad:

[SVoa]

Easyjets shares would have gone down three times as fast if it wasnt for their load factors. You think the EZY are stupid in wanting to keep their prices down to fill their aircraft? You think they dont want to make money??? People are still flying!!! Some airlines are just lowering capacity on routes. But the actual number of a/c flying is actually more! The demand for flying is still there and will be because traveling is second nature now, as it wasnt 15 years ago.

Personally everyone I know, who has an fATPL, and has been willing to be flexible as to where they live and work, has found a job in no time. The ones who wanted to stay next to their girlfriend and buddies, didnt. And of course, knowing people inside airlines never hurts... Captains will always retire and F/O's will always need to become captains. However I do agree that there are 100 times more wannabees today and that increases competition..

No I am not an instructor of school owner, and last time I checked this forum was for discussion and not irony, so I dont understand where your comments about drugs fit in to this discussion...

SVoa

[BitMoreRightRudder]

Some airlines are just lowering capacity on routes. But the actual number of a/c flying is actually more!

Nah I'm sorry, but conerted lurker wasn't too wide of the mark. Maybe not drugs, but you are certainly consuming too many e-numbers or something. Admittedly it does depend on which part of the world you are referring to with the above comment, if you are talking about Europe it makes no sense. The likes of ezy are not just cutting capacity on routes, it is capacity full stop. BA, FR and EZY are all grounding A/C for the winter. It is simple - in the current climate they will lose less by having them sat doing nothing rather than flying round near-empty.

At easyjet over the past few months a base has been announced for closure, STN has lost 3 a/c for the winter, a management cull has taken place at head office, they are offering unpaid leave for the winter and cabin crew on seasonal contracts are expecting to go. Trust me, we won't have more a/c flying this winter, neither will ryanair, neither will BA......

[nich-av]

EZY shares have crashed by more than half so the strategy you believe they have clearly isn't good. RYR the same and both top bosses saying there is a disaster afoot!


Airline share prices have nothing to do with cockpit job numbers, it has been said a dozen times here and I hope that peope will understand that.

I am with SVOA on this one.
Be smart and flexible, have common sense.

I am personally against airlines hiring 250 hour people for big jet jobs simply because when you come out of fast track integrated training, you come out with the illusion that you are a safe pilot. You can not be a safe pilot when you have never been given the chance to challenge yourself and to get to know your own limits.

Ideally I'd say, start with 250 hours, instruct or take a small turboprop (king air) job for 1 year and a half, then small jet job (Citation) for 1 year, then regional jet job (ERJ's/Avro/CRJ), then A320/B737 for a couple of years and finally widebody.

In the U.S. it works like this, and it is working very well.
There's no American version of Pprune where American pilots cry about their miseries simply because many people find smaller corporate jet jobs locally and understand that if they want to get the chance of flying a jet for an airline one day, they need to work hard instructing or doing a little job. The reward is that US airlines pay TR's for the pilots they hire.

Young American pilots earn their ways up.
Europeans pilots are buying their ways up.

[ChrisLKKB]

2009 is when the the effects of decreased consumer spending will really be felt. Food prices are up by 9%, gas and electric bills are up by 35% and 9% respectively (this varies between providers).

The demand for flying is still there and will be because traveling is second nature now, as it wasnt 15 years ago.People may be continuing to spend on air travel at the moment but as i've said before, surveys suggest many currently consider it a neccessity and not a luxury, something that the poster seems to agree with in the above quote. However with average fuel bills set to rise anywhere up to £400 (it's claimed) with further increases predicted in January, once the fuel bills come through in 2009 it will bring home to people how much the cost of living is really going up and continuing to rise. Non genuine necessities will soon become lurxuries once more and demand will fall off just as quickly as it appeared along with any predicted need for pilots.

It's the beancounters job to take advantage and plan ahead for anything positive that the market brings but be assured, the good ones will also have a contingency plan for any down turn, but unlike their plans for expansion, they tend not to be so vocal about their contigencies though as it's bad for buisness. You need to start looking to the medium to long term and not to what's directly ahead.

[Alex Whittingham]

Ah well, for the moment Easyjet's news is good Easyjet's passenger figures up 24% in August, load factors also increasing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7599788.stm)

[G-SPOTs Lost]

Fleet size last August??? Judging by such a big increase assuming they fly around full all day every day now at 100% loadfactor that would mean the load factor back in august 07 was at best 75% which seems low for easyjet.

These figures are skewed somehow, you would expect that a larger airline would fly more people...

Although I welcome any good news, this is damn lies and statistics.....

[Alex Whittingham]

They say a load factor of 87.4% last August, 91.3% this year.

[Grass strip basher]

Alex given such wonderful growth and traffic numbers perhaps as yourself one question.... why is there a recruitment freeze at pretty much all of the UK's largest carriers and fleet reductions/aircraft being ground at pretty much all of them??

As Warren Buffet once said "in business the view through the rear view mirror is always clearer than through the windscreen", I appreciate your position in the industry but to say that the average consumers propensity to travel is uneffected by a recession would seem to stretch the imagination.

[Alex Whittingham]

See my post #225 above.

[Alex Whittingham]

'Some people'? Are you referring to me? We'll see who is right in time.

[Finals19]

I think the fundamental issue here is the differentiation between "discretionary travel" i.e.leisure and non discretionary business / commuter travel. Locos for the most part concentrate on leisure discretionary routes (FR, EZY - although EZY less so) and its these that will obviously be hit.

The likes of FR won't and don't capitalise upon business travellers and routes. Take Paris as an example - FR keep costs down by flying into lower usage regional hubs (Beauvais) which have zero use for business travelling pax. As the credit crunch worsens, people aren't going to want to fly to regional European airports as these really only serve the leisure market and of course as consumers tighten the purse strings leisure traffic will hit an all time low.

You can hedge your fuel and costs until the cows come home, but that has b***er all significance if your route structure doesn't create the required yields.

[ChrisLKKB]

How many of these pax booked their seats 3 or even 6 months ago before the true extent of the crisis we are facing was truely known or taking effect.

[Alex Whittingham]

Yes, the charge of 'vested interest' is easy to level, but my end of the business is historically not affected much by short and medium term fluctuations. The ATPL is the first step on the professional licensing road and most of my customers are looking at a job market 2 years away when they start with me. Although I do supply material to integrated schools as well, in a downturn people tend to switch to modular so that tends to even out our sales. I'm totally in agreement with WWW, and presumably you, that now is not a good time to start integrated training or to splash on an IR. Whether its a good time to start modular or not depends on your view of the job market in two years time.

Yes, I do seriously mean to suggest that airline recruiters have a notoriously short term view and for the reasons I stated. It would take a very courageous and visionary recruiter to continue blithely through the barrage of warnings about recesssion and, if he did, the gain would be small. People are the same the world over.

The latest data shows passenger numbers up, load factors up and share prices up (yes, I know not as high as last summer) and oil prices down. It strikes me that this extraordinarily gloomy thread has lost touch with reality. All the evidence says the airline industry is OK, in fact more than OK. The rest is speculation.

Edited to add: I should qualify that before the state of the US carriers is raised in objection. I mean most of the UK industry is OK, the American and possibly the Spanish carriers have their own problems. Some of the weaker small UK carriers have, of course, already failed - in line with MOL's predictions - but their failure will have had little effect on the jobs market and, I guess, some of their routes will have been take up by the big boys.

[Lurking123]

Like Alex, I've been kicking around aviation for more than a couple of decades. Personally, I always look at the long game - Zero to Hero takes significant time. Some (please let's not get into a discussion about the definition of "some") people are undoubtedly in the wrong place at the wrong time but the reality is that there will be a point where there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The important bit will be seeing that light and being in a position to react.

As an ex-RAF type, I have seen the carnage caused when various training courses/schools have been closed due to lack of immediate demand, only for the RAF to have to spend vast amount of money rebuilding that training regime. Inevitably, the demand has then outstripped supply whilst the training system ramps-up. The secret is to get the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

I think most of us agree that the prudent course of action right now is to walk rather than run; that doesn't necessarily mean sitting down on the park bench and giving up.

Sorry for all the cliches, but I'm in that sort of mood. :O

[Grass strip basher]

I agree with Topslide... Alex please name which UK airline is "more than okay" at the moment and will be increasing the number of pilots it employs over the next 12-18 months??

I have no argument with modular being the right route at the moment and I personally believe your particular company has the best product in the market but to say airlines are not suffering at the moment is a real stretch.

There is a lot more pain for wannabees to come... we are only 1/3rd of the way through this for the UK economy. US is running 12-18 months ahead of us in this cycle and their unemployment is only just starting to sky rocket.... it would be unusual if ours didn't as well. Its just a good old fashioned economic downturn same as we have had before and we are still going into this one.... not coming out of it. :{:ugh::\

Alex I don't get your point about #225.... the data is historical and decisions about recruitment are made based off the company's individual view of the outlook.... clearly airlines now believe that has deteriorated signficantly (i.e. more in the WWW camp rather than yours). The fact is they have stopped recruiting.... period. Who knows when they will start again.... to imply this is a temporary kneejerk reaction is not a statment of fact it is your own interpretation. Indeed do you not think it would have been reckless to continue recruiting in the current environment? Would you have seriously made a different decision if you were in their shoes??

[Re-Heat]

All the evidence says the airline industry is OK, in fact more than OK. The rest is speculation.
You are living in cloud-cuckoo land, Alex. Have you not heard what IATA economists think?

http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/2008-09-03-01.htm


A summary:

“The situation remains bleak. The toxic combination of high oil prices and falling demand continues to poison the industry’s profitability. We expect losses of US$5.2 billion this year,” said Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO.

* North American carriers are expected to post losses of US$5.0 billion in 2008 making them the hardest hit by this industry crisis.
* Asia Pacific is expected to see profits shrink from US$900 million in 2007 to US$300 million this year.
* European profits will tumble seven-fold from US$2.1 billion in 2007 to US$300 million in 2008.
* Middle Eastern profits will drop by US$100 million to US$200 million.
* Latin American and African carriers will see losses deepen to US$300 million and US$700 million respectively.

[clear prop!!!]

Re-heat.

Alex has stressed that he is talking about the UK market.

The article you refer to talks, in the main about the situation facing the US and Latin America, which is so bad that it dominates the overall situation.

The situation is not good but even this depressing report shows that whilst the US and Latin America are suffering massive and unsustainable losses, the industry in Europe is still in profit, all be it greatly reduced from previous years.

As long as a company is in profit and has reasonable cash flow it will continue to trade and support a workforce.

We will no doubt see vigorous efforts to maximize profits, adjustments to routes and seasonal reductions but we are no where near having to face the situation dominating global statistics brought about by US losses.

The holiday season is now over and demand is still high, as I have just experienced on a very full EZY flight from Amsterdam.

No the upturn is NOT upon us but, with the exception of a few operators who’s profit was marginal even in good times, I too believe we will be ‘OK’ in the UK.

There is still recruitment going on, at a much reduced level, and as has been said again and again, modular is the way to go as all predictions are that things will be on the up by the time you complete.

[ChrisLKKB]

Funny how outsiders are able to see clearly what so many in the UK appear blind to.It's more a case of being conditioned to believe what they want to believe and ignoring what they don't. You can see this all through these upturn and down turn threads. It depresses me to see people are still, right now considering taking out loans to the tune of 60k to do intergrated courses, not that long ago you could buy a decent house in the south of England for that, infact 12 years or so ago I did. At least my house has potentially made me some money and still has a resale value. A frozen ATPL issued in the next couple of years will still be draining the bank account for a long time to come.

[Aerospace101]

http://www.itv.com/News/tonight/episodes/Endofcheapflights/default.html

Watch this Tonight programme from ITV about how bad airlines are facing this winter. Top level management interviewed. Screened at the start of the week.

Once youve watched that: :mad:!

"airline industry in meltdown"

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Futura Airlines have ceased trading according to Spanish media reports. 18 years of operation and 27 aircraft.

Be afraid.


WWW

[Aerospace101]

Rex, wait for the US financial markets to go into turmoil tomorrow following federal bail outs of $5.4Trillion. First result will be oil price going back up!!

I agree the tv prog is partly garbish. However theres no debating that airlines are in turmoil! I dont see any recruiting... and thats proably all that counts for everyone on here

[Aerospace101]

If you have £60,000 to invest at the moment;

I think youre better off investing it in sub prime loans than you are a fATPL!!! :ugh:

[Re-Heat]

Alex has stressed that he is talking about the UK market.

Do you think UK wannabes are NOT exposed to the global market - operating as they are in a global job market, with global airlines operating globally. Don't you think it is somewhat naive to sit back and say (regarding the only economy that the OECD thinks will have a grave recession) that all will be OK.

I maintain - you have to be loopy to believe that the UK market is not going to be extremely difficult for pilot recruitment.

[Aerospace101]

With BA's 787's arriving (touch wood) in 2010

Try 2014.

And I maintain if you are good enough and plan to be the best of the best you will make it

It doesnt matter if youre gods gift to flying: if no one is recruiting it doesnt matter how good you are; youre not going to get a job!! :ugh:

Rex, good luck with your Oxford/BA dream :ok:

[Alex Whittingham]

Yeah, I know I'm sticking my neck out at the moment going against the perceived wisdom.

Just out of interest, and before the Dow opens, relate this:

wait for the US financial markets to go into turmoil tomorrow following federal bail outs of $5.4Trillion. First result will be oil price going back up!!


...to what really happened this morning. The FTSE is up 200 points and oil is steady at $105. I will, of course, delete this post if the Dow crashes.

[RVR800]

1. Oil falling now $105
2. Flybe big profit rise!!!
3. Stock Market up 3% (transaction so high that LSE computer system fell over)
4. Interest rates low
5 Mortgages rates falling
6 Unemployment low
7 Pound help exports

[ChrisLKKB]

And I maintain if you are good enough and plan to be the best of the best you will make it. Even with cutbacks look at the amount of retirements there are going to be over the next 18-24 months.

And what about all those wannabes who already have a frozen ATPL who are looking for jobs ? I know wannabes and instructors who qualified 5 years ago and more who are still looking for their first stable job. All are very good pilots but getting your first break in this industry has nothing to do with your skill as an aviator, it's about applying to the right company at the right time, how you fill in your application form, how you present yourself at the interview and from recent recruiting patterns when you qualify with wannabes who finish their courses at the right time having better prospects of not ending up in the huge unofficial pool of fATPLers looking for their first right hand seat job!

With the state the industry is set to get itself into in the near future airlines are going to be relying on retirement and natural wastage to avoid having to make redundancies. I think a reality check is in order for some people here!

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

A $5 Trillion nationalisation is a once in a lifetime event that is perhaps most usefully viewed as a form of warning signal.

The USA just mortgaged two future generations without asking them. Post war economics might just be over.

WWW

[ChrisLKKB]

All I am trying to say is that there is absolutely no point going through life relying on blind speculation and thinking the worst all the time.The global down turn and the increased cost of living turn isn't speculation, it's happening all around you or are mum and dad still paying your way and sheltering you from reality ? The only speculation is how much worse it is going to get :ugh:

[Aerospace101]

relying on blind speculation

:eek: :confused: :eek: :confused: :eek: :confused: :eek: :confused: :ugh:

[Alex Whittingham]

Topslide, whilst I appreciate the value of irony you weaken your argument by being silly. Without exception, both the Eyores and the Pollyannas in this thread agree that taking out loans at this point is a bad plan. In fact, I don't think anyone would agree with any part of your last four paragraphs, so what's the point of the post?

[JB007]

Topslide6...

God...just a joke! Lighten up guys...life is just too short...

[ChrisLKKB]

As a moderator here JB007 that is completely inappropriate and uncalled for.

[helimutt]

Atually, JB007, I thought it was one of the more accurate posts of the day. :ok:

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Well. Someone heeding my 'blind speculation' over a year ago would not this minute be preparing to graduate into the current situation.

So not all blind speculation is a waste of electrons, eh Rex?


Its 1990 with knobs on - go learn some airline sector history is my advice.


WWW

[ChrisLKKB]

So calling someone an asshole is bang out of order but trying to completely ridicule & undermine someone, patronise them and dismiss them as "dillusional" and "brainwashed" for merely pointing out the FACT that the economy is not an exact science and its always a gamble to try and get into this industry is A-OK is it? Wow what a twisted set of morals on view here!No, a forum moderator calling someone an asshole is out of order. There's nothing wrong with expressing an opinion as a moderator but profane childish insults are uncalled for.

[helimutt]

RexBanner, I feel you are deluding yourself. People on forums are free to post what they think, within reason obviously, but WWW has been fairly accurate thus far.
I don't recall him saying that exact things would happen to exact companies/people on exact days. You seem to know all of the answers, so come on, give us the benefit of your wisdom.
Or you could always wind your neck in.:hmm:

[Lurking123]

I find today's UAL story quite interesting. To me, it demonstrates how jittery the markets are. One bit of inaccurate information (if the we are to believe the story about a regurgitated, 6 year old, bankruptcy article) and shares go into freefall. I'm also concerned about how the financial markets rely so much on unsubstantiated rumour; these guys are playing monopoly with real money and real lives.

PS. The last page of this thread has highlighted all that is bad about Internet forums. :ugh:

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Rex, if I could remind you of a conversation we were having on 11th Nov 2007 about the job market:

I said:

Self funded non sponsored training looks unappealing at this point.


You said:

Well yeah that may be true, but what do you expect people to do? Give up on their dreams of becoming pilots just because raising the money might be a little bit risky and difficult?

WWW I'm not sure quite why you're so negative towards the idea of taking out a loan. Have you been burnt in the past? To me, aviation will keep on growing unless there is a massive slump in the economy and, for all the problems at this current time that is unlikely to happen.


You went on to say on the 13th at 10.54


I beg to differ, the possibility of a recession is a RUMOUR! And it is also in the NEWS. So why then does that not constitute rumours and news exactly?




My point made at 10.57 on the 13th Nov was:

Well, you think oil at $100 a barrel, a North American recession and 1.47 Euro to the Dollar isn't going to have a negative impact on the European airline industry, and I think it will.




I think the record shows I did call the situation correctly and you didn't. But this isn't a competition. Its just a bit rich to be called a sheep when in fact I was the boy repeatedly shouting Wolf!

WW

[Aerospace101]

Rex must be a wind up merchant; bit like that fella off Big Brother... :ugh:

Isnt the title of this thread "Growing Evidence That The Upturn Is Upon Us"

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I quite agree Rex and good luck to you. If you don't run out of money or determination I am sure you'll make it and I hope you do.


WWW

[Alex Whittingham]

And so do I.

Interesting as it was, has that summary brought this thread to an end?

[ChrisLKKB]

Yes, good luck.

[nich-av]

IT IS ALWAYS A RISK CONDUCTING FLIGHT TRAINING. ALWAYS HAS BEEN ALWAYS WILL BE, REGARDLESS OF THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK AT THE TIME. I have never said anything else and never will.


See I can't agree with that.
I have yet to meet young guys in their 20's with CPL IR ME who have tossed the towel and have left for another job. That happened temporarily to those who were unlucky to graduate just after 9/11 but even most of them have found their way to an airliner cockpit somehow by now.

If you have a fATPL and can keep it current, someday you'll get a job somewhere. No doubt about that.

How soon depends on what you have and what you do for it.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I think in the coming weeks and months there will be ample call for a thread like this one so I won't be closing it.

I look forward to the day when it truly doesn't need to exist.


WWW

[MIKECR]

Its those that are qualifying from training now that are hitting the problem, not those that are about to start. The next 6 months look rocky but you make your own luck in this game. Timing is everything and those that decide to start a training programme now, might just strike it lucky when they finish in 18 - 24 months or so. Things could be quite bouyant again by then.

[G-SPOTs Lost]

200+ futura pilots 737 current and qualified looking for work, might take 18 months to absorb them into the current capacity before we get back to where we were yesterday.

70k Oxford + SSTR still looking like a good idea :rolleyes:

[MIKECR]

New start up - Fly Dubai are already advertising for 737 pilots. 54 NG aircraft on order for next year.

[nich-av]

Well, you think oil at $100 a barrel, a North American recession and 1.47 Euro to the Dollar isn't going to have a negative impact on the European airline industry, and I think it will.



1. The American recession did not happen.
2. The European airline industry is not doing as bad as it looks:

The Association of European Airlines has released traffic and capacity data for its members in July 2008.

As the industry moved into its summer peak, the tempo of growth continued to slow, with a 1.2% overall increase in passenger traffic, down from 1.6% in June. An exceptional 7.9% decrease in Domestic markets – where some AEA members have implemented commercial restructuring programmes – contributed to the depressed figures but cross-border traffic in Europe, relatively buoyant through the first half of the year, slumped to plus 0.8%, a five-year low.
The North Atlantic traffic volume was unchanged from July 2007, a barely perceptible recovery from the 0.3% decrease recorded in June. Far Eastern traffic grew by 1.1% – again, a marginal improvement on the previous month’s figure.
Other, less-travelled, markets retained somewhat higher growth figures, with the South Atlantic and Europe-Middle East continuing to perform strongly with increases of 11.8% and 8.9% respectively.
With capacity continuing to grow at 3.5% overall, load factor development was discouraging, with decreases across all route groups except North Africa. Overall load factor was 1.8 percentage points down at 79.9%, the first time since 2004 that the July figure has fallen below 80%.
One more negative indicator to emerge from the July figures was the decrease of 1.2% in freight traffic, the first minus in this column since 2005, typically thought to be a leading indicator of future trends in passenger markets. Behind this figure lay a substantial drop of 4.7% in North Atlantic volume although the other major market, to/from the Far East, also showed a decrease, of 0.2%.

http://files.aea.be/News/PR/Pr08-030.pdf

The +/- 30 AEA airlines that are part of this survey have about 1500 aircraft altogether.
If capacity increased by 3.5% between July 2007 and July 2008, 52 new airliners have been added within these 30 airlines, good for around 550 new pilot jobs created within the past year.

These numbers do not include figures for the other 65 or so European airlines including Ryanair, Easyjet and Wizzair.

It looks like the South Atlantic market is doing well, so we shouldn't be worrying too much about our Spanish friends from Futura.

[ChrisLKKB]

Perhaps we should start putting posts like

200+ futura pilots 737 current and qualified looking for work, might take 18 months to absorb them into the current capacity before we get back to where we were yesterday.in here, http://www.pprune.org/professional-pilot-training-includes-ground-studies/311832-growing-evidence-downturn-upon-us.html the down turn, thread to avoid upsetting the polyannas on the forum. They can look at it now and then for a reality check, hopefully before they sign on the dotted line for a 60k loan or they can choose to ignore it to avoid bursting their bubbles. :ok:

[MIKECR]

So when do you suggest then Chris that people should start training?

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

I predict a three year recessionary period for the sector. 2012 being the ideal time to enter the pilot job seeking market. Start training in 2011.

WWW

[MIKECR]

By your predictions then of starting in 2012 and not missing the boat, that means being qualified and cv's out by autumn of 2011. Bearing in mind application processe's for courses, organinsing fninances etc then people need to get their skates in about 6 months time.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Not really. A modular course can be done in 11 1/2 months and an Integrated in only slightly longer.

I think thoughts of boat missing ought to be suppressed until the tsunami has passed...

WWW

[MIKECR]

To be fair, I think we're really speaking about integrated training. According to OAA's info, the course minimum for integrated appears to be circa 65 weeks. Thats not including the application process, nor additional contingency time, nor holiday periods. Looks around 18 months, probably longer, from initial application to licence in hand and cv's out. If you are predicting that 2012 be the year of recruitment again then people need to be ready for interviews come autumn/winter of 2011.

[mustflywillfly]

Of course when the airlines do start recruiting again, whether it be in 2012 or not, they will likely hoover up all those swimming in holding pools. The CTC hold pool (for one, and originally unheard of for the wings grads) is fast becoming Olympic sized. But I will be there with my freshly completed Modular Training battling it out with the rest of them!

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

To be fairer we're talking about both training structures. Integrated takes about 60 weeks - the 65 contains contingency. The application process for most courses only involves posting a cheque. You don't need and probably can't afford holidays.

There is no point having a fresh IR issued in Oct2011 if the first signs of jobs growth occurs in the following year. You'll be a rusty bucket by then.

Several schools will have gone bust and I doubt there will queues to get into those who remain.

Its only an opinion.

WWW

[MIKECR]

The general thread seems to suggest we're speaking about integrated, based on all those who shout about and poo poo anyone who dares suggest signing up on a course for 70k.

As for jobs, if its 2012(your prediction, not mine), then the bottom line is being prepared to start spring time of that year. Licence in hand by the end of 2011 is the place to be. Airlines will know their summer schedules by then.

As for guaranteing a place on an integrated course i'd be starting the ball rolling somewhere around 4 - 6 months minimum beforehand.

[Shlarm47]

Alternatively - if you're in a good job, remain employed and start training now via the modular route and aim to complete the training by March 2011. That way it may be possible to have zero debt, a fATPL and have a chance of employment. :)

I'm 33 and just considering starting my PPL now. Who knows where it may lead.......

[eikido]

I read that EU have decided that all airliners must pay CO2 tax in a few years (am I right?). That will give us a new recession :hmm:.

Edit. I was right. Starting 2013.

European airlines angered by EU 'CO2 tax' (http://www.physorg.com/news133795267.html)

Quotes.

AEA:
"This decision is going to cost us 4.8 billion euros a year,"

"It all has to be compared with the 3.7 billion euros profit that our companies made in 2007, which was a very good year. And 2008 is looking quite different with the hike in fuel prices,"

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

The general thread seems to suggest we're speaking about integrated, based on all those who shout about and poo poo anyone who dares suggest signing up on a course for 70k.

As for jobs, if its 2012(your prediction, not mine), then the bottom line is being prepared to start spring time of that year. Licence in hand by the end of 2011 is the place to be. Airlines will know their summer schedules by then.

As for guaranteing a place on an integrated course i'd be starting the ball rolling somewhere around 4 - 6 months minimum beforehand.


Nope. 70k for Integrated or 50k for Modular - either way its a lot of money. My predicition was that 2012 might be a year in which you enter the job hunting market by whichever route.

You can get a place on an Integrated course with 6 weeks notice NOW. The other side of the recession only the old timers will remember when you needed to put your name down 6 months in advance to get a course start date.


If its anything like previous recessions there will be people who are prompted into a long contemplated career change by the loss of their current job. Often armed with a bountiful redundancy cheque they will keep the flying training industry ticking over during the bust.

WWW

[MIKECR]

I was never disputing the price.

The subject now is not 'dont do it', its 'when to do it'. We could just as easy see 2011 as the key time....who knows.

[ChrisLKKB]

So when do you suggest then Chris that people should start training?

3 years is the figure I had in mind and that seems to concur with WWWs figure, I can't see any significant improvement happening before then but it may take longer.
I'm doing my ATPLs again and i'm working on 3 years, maybe sitting the exams to be able to start flying again in spring 2011. There's nothing to stop anyone from studying the syllabus in the mean time, any updates which occur will be minimal.

I've got hold of some course notes and am studying them when I have time spare and i'll buy some up to date notes nearer the time, I wont be attending a groundschool although for anyone who is it certainly wont hurt if to know the material before attending ground school whether it's part of an intergrated or modular course.

[Flightless Falcon]

i find it hard to understand how people can put times on when to go training and advice wannabes of this, when the economy experts including Alistair Darling cant even put a date or time period for how long this crappy economic situation will last for...

Who knows it could be grand by this christmas or it could take 3, 4 , or 8 years....

at the end of the day when is the cheapist time to learn to fly exactly??????

((((remember that it will take over a year to train anyhow!!!!)))

[Artie Fufkin]

I was studying an integrated course during the last upswing. It was September 2004 and all the big boys announced they were opening up recruitment again after 3 years of all but closed doors. I was midway through the goundschool phase, so only 3 or 4 months into the course. The good times were around for many, many months (years even) after I finished my MCC.

If you are looking for previous precident to guide you when would be a good time to start an integrated or a full time structured modular course, why not wait until recruitment reopens and send your cheque off the next day?

Seems like a simple and sensible plan to me :ok:

the economy experts including Alistair Darling

HA HA HA!

[Flightless Falcon]

i know but sure thats what he calls himself.... aint it.... maybe ' big browe wod be better'

p.s... if you start to train in the next spell you could miss it altogether.....

"""doors closed"""

Its called a sine wave......

May as well spend a bad patch to train and be fresh of the 'oven' when it starts up...

There is no telling when the **** ends.....

[ChrisLKKB]

i find it hard to understand how people can put times on when to go training and advice wannabes of this, when the economy experts including Alistair Darling cant even put a date or time period for how long this crappy economic situation will last for...

You're absolutely right, i'm working on 3 years for myself as imo that's at least how long it will take for things to turn around given the current climate bearing in mind this country is up to its eyeballs in debt and so are the people living here...driven by this :mad: governments :mad: incompetence and :mad: self serving attitude.:mad::mad:

[Flightless Falcon]

ChrisLKKB

they should speak that on tonyt's 6 o'clock news...

Doesnt get much more accurate than that indeed....lol...

:D

[eikido]

Oil at $99,56!!!!

Could be the problem is not the oil price in the future. Might be the CO2 taxes (2012 in EU) :}

Eikido

[scanafrica]

WWWeasly wakka wakka welsh was wrong.

I can now confirm that oil will be below USD90 before the end of the year. Also, Gordon Brown will still be PM and his approval ratings will soar to 5 pc.

You are all still okay to buy property for now, prices will reverse and show an upturn from June next year.

HRH Harry will also be severely chastised and forced by an act of parliment to repay the taxpayers.

Good luck everyone, chin up, stay positive and look to the future.

[G-SPOTs Lost]

Yep you're right good news oil at blah blah blah....

Would somebody care to explain how as a newly qualified fATPL with zero operational experience quite how you plan to leapfrog 450 zoom/futura experienced 73/75 & 767 pilot who will probably take the next two years to employ as their target employers are all looking for economic savings and redundancys and extra productivity from their current staff...

This is also assuming that we don't have any other airline casualties between now and then - which is at best unlikely andassuming the vast majority of the 450 will not wish to give up life as they know it and move to the sand pit.

To harp on about the oil price here when its already taken its toll on these people at best is a kick in the nuts.

3 to 4 years at least for it to pick up just as between 2001 and 2005, for those who have only subscribed to these hallowed pages since 2005 dig up some threads from the real dark times of 2002 and get a feel for what to expect...

The jobs section in flight this week was like a pamphlet and its nowhere near bottomed out yet

[nich-av]

Sadly, as someone pointed out, the economy is something unpredictable.
But this decrease after the summer was predicted.

That makes the likes of WWW that predicted oil at surreal 200$/barrel by christmas look ridiculous.

Now they are predicting that it will be better in 2011 basing their assumptions on....? ...... ? ..... ? nil.

Do you even know why I mentioned 2011 while you were cheering the high oil prices and the housing crisis?

A little course on market prognoses:
Predicitions have to factor hundreds of factors taking into account different countries and markets. Any forgotten, miscalculated under or over estimated factor can change the picture by a certain factor depending on its importance. Every factor should therefore be given an adequate importance or "weight". Then there's the unpredictable that makes up most of the margin of error. Unknown factors can not be given a weight or an order of importance and therefore different realistic scenario's should be simulated giving for each scenario a result. The percentage of unpredictable can be calculated and together with the rest, be factored in the margin of error.

There's too many factors involved into predicting the pilot job market for 2009-2010 already. And even then, it can make such a huge difference because no one has all the information available at hand and the unpredictable is too big. The housing crisis in the UK is a very light factor for airlines compared to the dollar mini-bubble that is making some real damage.

For those in the UK that want to make a quick buck, monitor currency markets at this time. The euro currency is the best way to go. When the dollar mini-bubble bursts, the pound is likely to increase alot slower than the euro.

The governments are using the media and are probably trying to play the same games in Europe as the government did in the U.S. about potential recessions perhaps in a bid to slow down the excessive inflation.

[nich-av]

Would somebody care to explain how as a newly qualified fATPL with zero operational experience quite how you plan to leapfrog 450 zoom/futura experienced 73/75 & 767 pilot who will probably take the next two years to employ as their target employers are all looking for economic savings and redundancys and extra productivity from their current staff...


I will explain to you my dear friend.
Futura leaves a big hole in the Spanish market, a hole that other airlines will fill in no time. Futura had 19 aircraft, of which probably 1 might have been used as replacement aircraft.
450 pilots is therefore an unrealisticly high number. On short/medium haul ops, 14 pilots per aircraft is a good average bringing the total down to about 19 x 14 = 266 pilots, almost half your number.

Of those 266 pilots, 133 are supposedly captains, 50 experienced F/O's.
Other Spanish airlines, Ryanair and Easyjet will fight for those 183 pilots and would recruit them even if that results in a small surplus of pilots. The LCC's have probably stopped recruitment (even if they are still increasing capacity) simply because they are waiting for such airline failures so that they can go up and grab those experienced but desperate pilots.

Really because some tend to think that Ryanair and Easyjet prefer to recruit ab-initio's to make extra money on the 25 000€ they pay. I think that it's rather because they have no choice and want to cover the cost of the TR and to some extent, line training. But such occasions as Futura is what they are really waiting for. Highly experienced pilots that will not cost much to train and that would accept the working conditions very easily are available for grabs...

Of course that impacts the job market of ab-initio's for a few months.

But there's many captains from Ryanair and Easyjet leaving for Dubai right now so I wouldn't worry too much.

Also, it looks like most of the 19 aircraft were leased. The aircraft will retun to the lessor and be forwarded to other airlines where new jobs will be created and pilots will be needed.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Just a point of order. I never predicted oil at $200 and was actually being widely vilified for saying that the oil price is a sideshow.

Its the HPC led recession that has been the object of my fears.

Both are getting worse.

Oil is a sideshow.


WWW

[heli_port]

scanafrica wrote:

I can now confirm that oil will be below USD90 before the end of the year.

Looks like you were right sa:

Oil rises on Opec production curb (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7607508.stm)

Oil prices have risen to $104 a barrel in Asian trade, reversing earlier losses, after OPEC agreed to return to its late 2007 production levels.

up up and away http://www.smileyarena.com/emoticons/Packs/Oranges/fonzie.png
(http://www.smileyarena.com/download.aspx?File=emoticons/Packs/Oranges/fonzie.png)

[MIKECR]

The price is extremely volatile. You can watch it fluctuate anywhere in a $5 to $6 rate of change in as little as a 24 hour basis. Theres no surprise that todays announcement from Opec has caused a slight rise. Just as when the 2 recent hurricanes theatened output levels in the Gulf of Mexico, traders quickly pushed prices higher in the region of a $5 increase. No sooner had the weather sorted itself and the price fell sub $100. Having just looked at the price just now, its back at $103 with bent crude slightly less. It will be interesting to see what the close of trade brings today and over the next few days, that may give some indication as to where the trend is going, certainly for the interim period.

www,

I cant get my head around this 'sideshow' idea you keep referring to. Todays figures suggest soaring fuel costs have attributed to £3 billion losses with airlines this year. In 2001 fuel amounted to roughly 12% of total operating costs, that figure has now risen to roughly 35%. More airlines have already gone bust this year alone than ever did in the wake of 2001, yet worldwide load factor has increased by 1.9% in the last year so what on earth is the overiding factor that has caused such devastation??? Certainly forecasts are predicting further losses in 2009 and decreasing passenger deman due to ecenomic slowdown but you can hardly call oil a sideshow.

[ChrisLKKB]

WWW;

You should get Danny to give you a signature, something like "Listen You T***TS, I did not predict a $200 Barrel" , or before long you'll be the blamed for the entire industry slow down. :}

MIKECR;

Not totally sure if this is what WWW means when he says oil is a side show but I take it to mean that oil isn't the big issue here, it is the global economic problems that we are facing and closer to home the serious financial mess Gordon Clown has the country and it's people into. The scale of Brown’s broken economy | Coffee House (http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2068576/the-scale-of-browns-broken-economy.thtml)
If like me you believe that spending in all sectors is going to be seriously reduced if no one has any spare money to spend, then industries such as the airlines are going to be badly effected. The government is running out of relatively short term quick fixes. They or someone else are going to have to sort out the mess they've got us into and that will take sometime. Oil is just a thorn in their side.

[Re-Heat]

I cant get my head around this 'sideshow' idea you keep referring to. Todays figures suggest soaring fuel costs have attributed to £3 billion losses with airlines this year. In 2001 fuel amounted to roughly 12% of total operating costs, that figure has now risen to roughly 35%. More airlines have already gone bust this year alone than ever did in the wake of 2001, yet worldwide load factor has increased by 1.9% in the last year so what on earth is the overiding factor that has caused such devastation???
What he quite clearly means, is that whatever the load factors appear to be, the pricing of those seats has become a great deal softer in the recent months - therefore revenues and profits per seat are falling and appear as though they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

How long does it take people to realise that any monkey can fill a plane - to do so profitably is an entirely different matter!

[MIKECR]

Re Heat,

Thankyou, at least somebody realises where im coming from! Oil has already proved to be a bigger killer than any recession. Airlines will continue to go under for the timebeing, perhaps even one one of the big boys, but the fact remains...oil is not a sideshow. 12 % operating costs spiralling to 35% operating costs just about says it all. As Re Heat rightly says, you can fill a plane with seats but flying it at a loss will only last or so long before its tatties ove the side. Yes, the ecenomic downturn will also take its toll, but to put oil to some 'after thought' type problem is ridiculous

[clanger32]

Errrmmm...I know this is only one school but no, you can't get into Oxford (at least) in 6 weeks time. Even given the horrendous current market situation and continual doom and gloom (rightly, in fairness) STILL the earliest you can start at Oxford appears to be the February course...
ask.oxfordaviation.net • View topic - 2008 APPFO Courses Full (http://ask.oxfordaviation.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4668)

[Aerospace101]

Plus youve got +40 integrated & modular chaps graduating each month, all looking for jobs; Continual output for atleast the next 2 yrs.... (if demand doesnt change) :eek:

[Re-Heat]

Mikecr - It applies to both your and WWW's argument - costs rising and revenues falling, though volume constant/growing.

[eikido]

Soooooooooooo. Nobody seems to care about the EU airliners paying for CO2 emission taxes in 4 years. Isn't that even worse than oil price being sky high?

Eikido

[ChrisLKKB]

I don't think it's going to be anywhere near the scale of the problem that the airlines are facing in the mean time. It'll probably mean a relatively small increase in air fares and will be listed seperately to the cost of the ticket so people don't feel like they are paying anymore for their ticket just more in tax. (eg. I expect you know people who say, hey I got a really cheap flight for a quid, but the air port taxes were £30 it still cost them £31 in all but phsycologically they only paid a quid for the flight ).

Personally I don't think it will impact significantly on passenger numbers or that it will have the desired effect, it'll just be another revenue raiser, I expect MoL will manage to make money from it some how ;)

[Another TD]

This may Interest some of you.....

Pilot Vacancies - Current Vacancies - easyJet Careers (http://www.easyjetcareers.com/current-vacancies/pilot.asp)

[nich-av]

Soooooooooooo. Nobody seems to care about the EU airliners paying for CO2 emission taxes in 4 years. Isn't that even worse than oil price being sky high?

Eikido


It's a myth, it will never happen.

They are trying it now in AMS, and many many airlines are pulling out of there. Even El Al is considering moving its decades long (and corrupt) cargo operation down south to LGG.

If it happens, aviation will be discriminated compared with other industries. It will negatively impact some countries that rely alot on aviation and tourism and tthose countries will veto against it.

The EU is getting too much power anyways.
Some countries are about to do something about that...

[Artie Fufkin]

Ouch (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article4735790.ece)

Fingers crossed its not true.

[nich-av]

I think that we will see many failures in the UK and Spanish charter airlines. I can see the TUI group in the UK taking measures.

Girjet, for instance, is a failure that went unnoticed but marked the start of the depression we now see in the Spanish charter market.

[James D]

The end of wannabe recruitment for a long time it seems. I seem to recall WWW predicted a major European airline would go under about 6 months ago, he seems to be spot on...yet again.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

My heartfelt condolences to those affected in whichever way. Particularly so to those ex-colleagues and friends of mine who work there. Awful news.


WWW

[nich-av]

The end of wannabe recruitment for a long time it seems. I seem to recall WWW predicted a major European airline would go under about 6 months ago, he seems to be spot on...yet again.


XL Airways is not really a major European airline.
I'd call a major airline any airline that has at least 50 aircraft operating regular routes and hiring 500 pilots.

XL Airways is very similar to Futura.

XL Airways is a joke next to a bigger threat: United.
United reported losses of over 2 billion dollars in Q2. That's eating up their cash pretty fast. Oh by the way, its CEO said that it's because of oil prices... not house prices...
When UA goes down, there will be alot of pilots available... Many will head to Dubai, threatening European pilot jobs.

I'm still not that pessimistic about the market in Europe because though the scheduled airlines and charter airlines markets are quite saturated, other markets such as air taxi are yet to developed. The day the EASA certifies the Eclipse 500 (late 2009?), and the Spectrums come online, orders will rain and a new large segment will be created.
A jet burning 55USG/hour cruising at 350kts... even at today's oil prices it can be affordable to a broad population of business travellers. That trend already started with the Mustang late last year:

Monday, October 1, 2007
First Large Fleet Order for Mustang</SPAN>

Capitalizing on the growing business in Europe and the rest of the world, Cessna Aircraft pulled in an order for 30 of its VLJ Citation Mustangs from an undisclosed European air-taxi operator.

Aviation Today :: First Large Fleet Order for Mustang (http://www.aviationtoday.com/regions/usa/16182.html)


The issue with the Mustang is cost: Fuel burn and ownership costs are too high. It's more a mini-Citation than a VLJ.
That's why it's popular among existing operators of Citations but not really among new start-up air-taxi operations that really want to keep cost very low. That's where the Eclipse and the Spectrum are going to revolutionise.

LCY-LBG (London-Paris), 178nm great circle or approx 200nm.
40 minutes and 40 USG of kerosene carrying up to 4 pax.

Even better if you do LCY-LIN (London-Milan)
90 minutes and 85 USG carrying up to 4 pax.
Could turn out to be cheaper than an economy-class ticket if flying with 4!!

[Glasswasher Man]

Wee Weasley Welshman was right in his predictions in the other thread (unfortunately).:(

Hopeless news for wannabies and crews.

[Aerospace101]

Tragic news.
We are not even winter yet, nor full swing of the recession. This really is the dark ages of the aviation industry.
I fear, just the start of things to come in the next year.

[Aerospace101]

Am i right in thinking XL have cadets at OAA? thoughts with them. sad day for even the "abinitio part sponsored" scheme...

[pipertommy]

How long do you think the industry will take to absorb the current experienced pilots on the market?

[clanger32]

I don't think XL have any cadets at OAA currently, their cadet scheme, IIRC, didn't run last year, so the last intake would have been C Sep 2006, i.e. they will be long graduated, although a years experience doesn't stand them in great sted.

Very bad news for all, however..

:ooh::sad:

[helimutt]

5yrs +. It'll get a lot worse before it gets better.

[Aerospace101]

speaking to airline management this week and it really is a case of far worse of 9/11. lots of jobs going in airline management at head offices.

basically dont expect recruitment (for experienced pilots) to start again for 1-2yrs. Low hours or abinitio give it atleast 3-4yrs.

have a look back at the recruitment patterns 2004/05 post 9/11 for a better indication of what to expect.

[heli_port]

further evidence that the upturn is upon us:

Holiday firm XL in administration

BBC NEWS | Business | Holiday firm XL in administration (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7611639.stm)

:=

[ChrisLKKB]

It's a little bit rich to hear on the radio about people loosing their holidays when there are some people who could be loosing their jobs or even their houses over this. :*

My sympathies go to all of them :(

Gawd knows how long this will set recuitment back, Helimutts 5 years + seems more conceivable than it did yesterday, something really positive needs to happen over the next few years to turn this around and I can't see what it's going to be. This has to be setting up for one of the worst times for pilot recruitment in aviation history.

[Grass strip basher]

Geeeewhiz WWW was right after all..... who would have thought it. :ugh::ugh:

Alitalia stuck in deep talks with unions overnight (that airline is toast as toast can be and will be spewing pilots left right and centre).... then there will be airline consolidation and more jobs losses.

There will be more (and worse) to come .... although we are starting to get into the meat of this downturn now.... suck it up folks this is a cyclical industry and people have been warning about this for c12 months now since the credit markets and access to cheap debt went out of the wind 12 months ago.

If you are halfway through an integrated course now I sincely hope you have a back up plan and didn't bet your parents house on getting a job. If you are doing modular frankly I would put it on hold for at least 12 months or you are just pi**ing money down the drain..... no point having a newly minted IR for the next 12-18 months it is not worth the paper it is printed on. :sad::uhoh:

[eikido]

BTW, is this situation occuring all over the world (extra tough finding a job)? Or mostly EU + US?

Eikido

[Bombs Away]

Just out of curiosity why does everyone believe that airlines are going to go for experienced pilots first. Think about it, why hire an experienced pilot who you are going to have to pay comensurate with that experience (at least that's what the pilot would expect) when you can hire someone straight out of flight school and pay them a hell of a lot less to do the same job. Or am I completely wrong on that one :confused:

That said I think any wannabee's who start training now are completely nuts. There will not be many jobs out there for any of you. I personally have decided to give the training a miss. I'm in a stable job at the moment so becoming a pilot in current market conditions is going to have to stay a pipe dream.

[Aerospace101]

Or am I completely wrong on that one

Yes!

You cant just hire someone out of flight school. The airline has sort out safety, crm, typerating, base training, line training etc. That all costs ~£50K :eek:

Where as experienced pilots already typerated only have to do a short sim course for sompany SOPs. So whilst an experienced pilot costs maybe 10K more in salary, they are far cheaper in training and far less risk (as student could fail all mentioned courses above = £££££) :bored:

[Capt Pit Bull]

Or am I completely wrong on that one

Yes.

Most airlines work on pay scales related to time in the company (plus rank and type operated) which means that a company pays a new F/O the same amount regardless of where they come from.

(which incidentally is why the pilot workforce is so immobile and just has to take it up the arse whenever management feels like it)

pb

[JB007]

Just out of curiosity why does everyone believe that airlines are going to go for experienced pilots first. Think about it, why hire an experienced pilot who you are going to have to pay comensurate with that experience (at least that's what the pilot would expect) when you can hire someone straight out of flight school and pay them a hell of a lot less to do the same job. Or am I completely wrong on that one

Yep - very wrong, probably only O'Leary that'll agree with you...

I know many good guys/gals that i've worked with over the years who are with XL, stressful times for those involved.

Bottom line for guys now with fATPL and <200 hours - make no bones about it, you're not employable for about 4 years+, stark reality, find other work and do your best to keep current.

It will turnaround, I personally have been through this twice before - what will be interesting is how the industry will look in 4-5 years from now...with BIG mergers on boardroom tables now...how many employers will you have to choose from?!?

[Bombs Away]

Sorry I think I was misunderstood. When I said flight school I was talking about someone fresh out the gate with a type rating.

So what we're saying is that if you have two pilots, one with a couple of thousand hours on type and one with with a fresh type rating the company would pay them the same. Would the guy with more experience not expect a lot more at least in terms of career progression :confused:

By the way I don't want to sound like an accountant here as I certainly feel for all the pilots who are struggling and I hope they all get sorted as soon as possible but I'm just thinking that airlines are run by people like Mr O'Leary and is this how they would be viewing it :confused:

[Rhodes13]

Bombs away he may expect more but its what the company is willing to pay that dictates your pay. Its a fairly easy choice when you can either starve and lose your house or take a job at less/slightly less than your were earning.

As to a 200 hour kid with type rating makes stuff all difference as they still dont have time on type, which is what counts. Still much harder to train guys with low hours and a shiny new type rating than a guy with thousands of hours on type!

As someone said amount of pay is determined by time in company only a very few operators vary pay according to experience and that is normally in private/business jet ops.

[mustflywillfly]

Well XL going bust has put the final nail in the coffin for me. Why bother continuing with training? I sometimes fly with an XL Captain in fact he instructed me for my night rating, lovely bloke, excellent pilot and now job hunting. Him and many, many others. These guys are low risk and readily employable. What chance do newly qualified peeps have?

I will get the ATPLS finished as I am 3/4 of the way there but then sit on my arse back in the day job for another 2 years before I absolutely have to do the CPL/IR. Is it 3 years from the date of the last exam to get the CPL/IR done or is there more that needs doing in this time or is it just the IR?

Thank fu*k I haven't just started an Integrated course.

Good Luck folks and deepest sympathy with all the XL Leisure Group employees.

MFWF :{

[Flightless Falcon]

be grand for inetgrated students who have a dammm good contingincy plan...When i say this, there would need to be a job waiting for them in that particular industry..

Working in tescos or sainsbury's wnt cut this slack....

[INNflight]

Alitalia perhaps the next to go? That will flood the european market with even more experienced pilots!

Imo the recent bancrupties (zoom, XL...) are only the very beginning of it.

Think about it, ........... Alitalia, SkyEurope, the creepy huge AirBerlin group :uhoh:

Austrian Group won't have any more funds by mid-2009 if no one buys them up until then too..... :ouch: hope LH goes for it.

[Aerospace101]

MD of flybe;

Toughest time for the industry, ever in history


MD of ba;

Expect 30 airlines to go under within next 4 months


Throw the rule book of low hour pilot recruitment out the window!!

[nich-av]

Alitalia perhaps the next to go? That will flood the european market with even more experienced pilots


We don't know that yet.
There's a thread on Airliners about failed negociations but I think that it is very pessimistic. The way I see it, they are putting pressure on the unions and giving them the "what if it's really the end?". Because frankly, they don't need the ok of the unions to do this, they can bust everyone and rehire them one by one.

If Alitalia goes down, it will be very unfortunate for the job market as around 3000 pilots will come on the market.
It's too early to say that it's worse than 9/11... unless AZ really collapses. In the aftermath of 9/11 the Sabena-Swissair collapse put thousands of pilots on the market.


Think about it, ........... Alitalia, SkyEurope, the creepy huge AirBerlin group


Alitalia, SkyEurope, Vueling, Spanair, Clickair, Air Europa, Austrian (if not bought by LH), LOT, Olympic Airways, SN (if not bought by LH) and I would add BA and IB as well.

Air Berlin is not likely.

[JohnRayner]

And winter comes!

That link is interesting. F'rinstance, 2003 was the worst year for name changes and suspending flights. Out of 58, 20 of them were mergers or name changes, so presumably 38 carriers going pop.

This year so far, 53 in total, with 6 mergers, so presumably 47 carriers going pop or thereabouts.

The totals for the other years don't exceed 42, and that was in 2001 (perhaps unsurprisingly)


:uhoh::uhoh:

[JB007]

I believe someone else called you an asshole recently?
That would be me!

Guys/Gals, I've actually agreed with WWW's and others predictions throughout, but from a different prospective, i've been in this industry longer than them, what you're experiencing now is what you are gonna see a few times (to say the least) in say, a 30 year flying career in the UK! You need to accept that, no sense of humour, go work in a bank - I started work in this industry in 1989, it's soooo different now...the good times will return...it's more of a case of what the industry has to offer - 5/6 UK airlines???!!!!

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

There's not much merit in a big debate about who was right, said what when and whatnot. I didn't mind in the slightest that people expounded very different views to me on the housing market, the general economy and the likely future state of the Wannabe employment market. I welcomed those debates because they were the most engaging way of illustrating the issues to Wannabes. That illustration was all I wanted to provide.

Things are coming to pass pretty much as I expected and that causes me nothing but sadness and concern. There's nothing to say that my own employment aspirations will not be seriously scuppered by the coming storm.

By the winter of 2009 I think we will probably be at the bottom and from there on I expect a plateau and then eventually an upturn followed by a boom.

What remains to be done now by all Wannabes is to manage the situation as best as possible. Those that avoided the worst debt obligations and those that can slow down their training will be best placed. As far as that goes I'm pleased that my - and others - advice along those lines has been shown to be good.

To this point I was highly confident of what was going to happen. From this point on my crystal ball is frustratingly cloudy. As such my ability to give advice is much diminished.

What I can offer in an unreserved fashion is my sympathy if you are going to be hurt by all this.

There is more to come. Willie Walsh is on Sky News as I type predicting another 30 EU airlines to go bust in the next 12 months. :( BA won't be one of them and I see very little reason for Walsh to be spinning a line to the benefit of his company.

The good times will return.

WWW

[eikido]

Is this the worse period the airline industry has seen yet?
Which period was worse than this one?

Eikido

[spinnaker]

Is this the worse period the airline industry has seen yet?
Which period was worse than this one?

WW2 wasn't very good at all. If now isn't the worst period, it must be getting pretty close, winter to come.

[G-SPOTs Lost]

Travel companies and locos/airlines have had it good for maybe 3-5 years, this introduces entrepreneurial aspirations in management so you see start ups/aquisitions and expansion.

Problem being everybody wants/needs a bite of the apple, XL/Zoom/Futura in their failing whilst incredibly unfortunate actually goes some way to helping the future of the others.

Larger airlines will lick their wounds, nobody will be daft enough to make inroads into the remaining reducing capacity whilst they do so.

Over the next 5-7 years prices will firm up, positive profits will stabilise on the reduced capacity, until such times as the streamlined profits and entrepreneurial spirit will return and start ups, aquisitions and expansion will come around again.


Bombs Away

Airlines should aspire to have a "standard distribution" of experience, imagine a bell shape in profile in the bottom left is a small area of inexperienced crew, the thick bit in the middle contains upgradeable SFO's and FO's and expereienced captains with a few crusty pending retirees in the bottom right hand corner. This has safety benefits, personnel benefits and prevents direct entry commands promotes internal promotion and gives beancounters a target for early retirement and or voluntary redundancy in said bottom rh corner

Airlines like Ryanair have huge experience gaps which is why they revert to the contract market regularly and have the crewing reputation that they do.



Sympathies to XL crews lets not forget the unfortunate zoom and futura crews that already seem like yesterdays news

[Aerospace101]

WWW, for those wannabes close to paying vast sums of money to training providers, what would be your advice?

[BitMoreRightRudder]

What do you think??!

[JB007]

I think WWW would agree, simply don't!

[nich-av]

Take a job, if possible inside the aviation world, do your ATPL's at your pace and more as a hobby than for survival, even if it takes 4 or 5 years.

[x933]

Forget about it. Completely. Do something productive. Useful. Go into an ops department or get a job at an airport - start making links now, it will benefit you in a few years time. Whatever you do *don't* throw money at flying training - screw the dream, smell the coffee.

I've been following this thread for a while and my own thoughts and WWW's predictions have been remarkably in line. Who supplies your balls, WWW?

[pipertommy]

If you were going the mod route, which took me four years (not rushing) then now would`nt be a bad time.

Start the PPL and enjoy the hour building towards a brighter future.

Dont mean to start a training debate:)

[Superpilot]

Just to make a point. Around 200,000 people who had holidays booked with XL are now suddenly going to have to find another travel firm to take them on. Call my thinking simple, but I think this creates a sudden demand and need for the likes of Thomson and Thomas Cook to expand. They need to think about laying on additional 1,000 flights for the coming few months and increasing their capacity by 25% (XL's market share) for the future. Majority of these people will still want a holiday.

[bri1980]

Don't forget that the XL demise will create a loss of confidence in the holiday industry so any need for expanson if other airlines won't necessarily materialize.

Because of the collapse of XL there will also be a number of qualified type rated pilots in the job market who, without doubt, will find jobs long before any 500 hour CPL/IRs if such jobs exist.

Now is not the time to be a wannabe looking for the first airline job.

[Black Knat]

Pipertommy is absolutely right-if you can accept not much money coming in, do modular, become a flying instructor etc, have a good time doing it and in a few years time you will be in a good position when things pick up. The 'doom and gloom' currently experienced by the industry means few will do this.
One thing I don't think has been mentioned yet is that the banks/lenders are going to (already are) getting burned by the money they have lent to people to do flight training. When things do pick up I reckon that raising finance for flight training is going to be much, much harder which will cut off the supply to airlines of new qualifiers.

[Another TD]

It's not just Zoom and XL staff losing their employment.
BA held meetings yesterday outlining that 1400 senior management staff have a small window in which to accept a redundancy package that will see them unemployed on the 30th December. If not taken then a reduced package will have to be accepted. Don’t be smug because they are senior management it always starts at that level then cascades down. Ba is losing £2.9 million per day at this time and it’s not the winter schedules yet. So, what about all those other airlines, they don’t have to go into administration for staff to face unemployment.
Just passed ATPL exams and now decided to start moduler CPL/IR flying mid/late 2009 unless things change for the better. And don’t forget the flying schools will soon be seeing a reduction in students so you may find some good deals next year but be careful they are not about to go bust.... remember SFT

[Aerospace101]

One thing I don't think has been mentioned yet is that the banks/lenders are going to (already are) getting burned by the money they have lent to people to do flight training.

Spot on.

This happened in the USA a few years ago. Loads of students got into debt, banks then made financing to student pilots very hard to get. Consequently, much much harder now for USA wannabes (remember, totally different training structure compared to UK fATPL) to get funding. Which actually means that there are far less students becoming pilots - hence pilot shortage fears.

The same WILL happen over here. As soon as all the reckless people getting into vast sums of debt now start defaulting and causing banks problems; they will pull the plug on pilot financing. Maybe OK for all the rich lot with parents supporting them or houses to use guarantees. This is very bad news for students coming out of school/uni or on the financial fringe trying to get loans.

I bet you this is what happens;

- 2008-2010 massive pool of fATPLs with no jobs
- Banks (already in bad times with sub prime loans) make pilot financing extremley hard to get when they get p*ssed off with defaulters
- Come 2012, if recruitment starts again, pilot training will be only for rich
- Come 2015 with massive airline expansion & recruitment, therell be another 'pilot shortage', akin to the days of 1998.

Sounds like history repeating itself!!!!

[Rhodes13]

They need to think about laying on additional 1,000 flights for the coming few months and increasing their capacity by 25% (XL's market share) for the future. Majority of these people will still want a holiday.

Superpilot you're basing your assumptions on a couple of things there! Firstly that the other carriers are running at 100 percent load factors which they are not and the other is that people will still want to travel when they have the fear of loosing their job. Thus any increase will be able to be accommodated in the current flying schedule which pretty much rules out expansion.

If you watched the news you would have seen a lot of those people had bought their holidays last year when times were still relatively good, now fast forward a couple of months and look at it again. Vastly different picture!

Things are bad make no doubt about it. While perversely its good that XL went out of business because it ensures the survival of the other airlines for the moment, don't for one moment think that because of this that the remaining airlines will expand.

Far from it. You will probably see more route restructuring with airlines dropping frequency on loss/slim margin routes and bumping up frequency on decent routes. The name of the game for any airline now is survival.

People whilst I admire always trying to look at the glass half full there has to come a time when you call a spade a spade! Prospects are not looking good for low time guys. Personally I wouldn't be suprised if the hiring freeze at ezy and ryr continues longer than planned as its forecast on growth of the market and retirements/ people moving on/upgrades etc. Take any of those away and you won't have any hiring at all.

[smith]

there has to come a time when you call a spade a spade!

I always call a spade a spade, if you don't, despite causing utter confusion, you run the risk of appearing rather stupid and uneducated.

Lets face it, has anyone here ever called a spade a rake or a hoe? I doubt it!

[cjd_a320]

You guys are kidding yourselfs if you think were going back to the late 80's style boom in the next few years in the mature western markets such as the UK, Euroland and the North America continent.

The growth will still come from emerging markets. However it will be difficult for mature market citizens to obtain the necessary work visas once the emerging market's own training infrastructure comes fully online.

You wanabies also seem to ignore how increasing oil prices over the next decade will greatly help the emerging markets while crippling mature ones.

Maybe its time for you wanabies to start focusing on how to gain residency in an emerging market, instead of chasing the past by looking constantly in the rear view mirror of whats already happend in a mature market.

[heli_port]

more good news:

Alitalia 'running out of fuel' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7614336.stm)

Italy's national airline, Alitalia, may have to cancel some flights because of a lack of funds to buy fuel, a top official has warned.

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/nn3/heli_port/alitalia.jpg

[heli_port]

growing evidence that the upturn is upon us:

Holidays at risk as more airlines face bankruptcy


Families risk losing holidays they have already booked as travel chiefs gave warning that 30 airlines were on the brink of collapse.


Holidays at risk as more airlines face bankruptcy (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article4744384.ece)

[daviojk]

I have been following this thread with some interest. My job is to raise money for companies. I have done this job for more years than I care to admit and this is the worst it has ever been. This credit 'crisis' started 13 months ago, and despite what people say, is still ongoing with no end in sight.... The politicians have opened every loophole to facilitate the flow of credit, but just when we think things get better, we get some new disaster ie nationalisation of the US retail mortgage market, another US bank (Lehmans) on the ropes etc.

There is a huge amount of fear in the investor base, especially over the strength of any financial instutition. This means the price they demand is high. Therefore you have all the major Aussie banks raising funds about 0.5% - 1% higher than last yr, and still going up. For the UK, French, Spanish & Irish banks it is much higher (when they can actually find an investor to give them the money in the first place). These entities already have weak balance sheets, so cant absorb this cost, so they pass it on.

Essentially the cost of money is going up...alot. This is going to effect some many different areas of lives, as things inevitably get more expensive. This recession will not be short and I really hope we hit bottom in 2009 (as mentioned earlier), but no one really knows. The spectre of a Japanese decade-long recession is unlikely as the cultures are so much different, but the 3yrs mentioned elsewhere on this thread, should be what people should be expecting (read, hoping) for. And I really cant see banks offering trainee pilots (or anyone else for that matter) £60k+ in the future, unless it is secured on a house with a lot of positive equity in it.

The terrible failure of yet another large aviation/travel company, XL (and my sympathy to all their employees) is just highlighting how difficult it is for this industry, and Wille Walsh's comments should be listened too. Their woes are also being compounded by a high oil price. Speculation has played a part in the price volatility, but with China, India etc industralising, it is never going back down to $40 - 60 until we find a viable alternative (or the US find their own Ghawar oil field...)

As someone who is learning to fly (PPL) and is looking at switching professions in the future, modular seems the most sensible approach for any wannabe in this market, aiming to be qualified in 3-4yrs time...but only just my opinion. It is sad to predict, but there will be better qualified candidates for any pilot position for the next couple of years as the recent surplus of redundant pilots is absorbed.

Will probably regret sticking my neck out :sad:

[G-SPOTs Lost]

Daviojk - used to be in commercial finance myself....good post, good luck with the PPL

[Aerospace101]

Just spotted this on BBC dated Frit12thSept

Alaska Airlines to cut 1,000 jobs

Alaska Airlines is not the only airline struggling with high fuel prices
Alaska Airlines says it will cut up to 1,000 jobs and reduce flight departures by 15% as record oil prices and a slowing economy take their toll.

The airline made a $50m (£28m) loss in the first half of the year and said it needed to take "decisive action".

The job cuts, representing about 10% of the workforce, will begin from 9 November and affect pilots, cabin crew, technicians and service staff.


Looking like Alitalia about to go under on monday....:(

[nich-av]

Looking like Alitalia about to go under on monday....


I'll have to see it to believe it.
Very final meeting starting in 10 minutes and the pilot union is starting to give in according to corriere.it
They realise that it's their last shot.

The government will give an offer that is to take or to leave.

And I really cant see banks offering trainee pilots (or anyone else for that matter) £60k+ in the future, unless it is secured on a house with a lot of positive equity in it.


Did UK banks offer unsecured loans to student pilots in the past? Now maybe that's one tiny piece of the reason why there's a credit crunch in the UK?

If unsecured loans happened in the UK, it never happened in France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Luxemburg, Swiss, Denmark and Italy.

[nich-av]

Alitalia unions accepted a main proposal.
Other details still need to be worked out but unions are cooperating.
Flights on Moday will not be affected.

Source: corriere.it

Alitalia, raggiunto un accordo quadro Sacconi: «Passo avanti importante» - Corriere della Sera (http://www.corriere.it/economia/08_settembre_14/Alitalia_trattativa_finale_piloti_convocati_27391406-8238-11dd-9b8b-00144f02aabc.shtml)

[Grass strip basher]

Lehmans gone bankrupt this morning and Merrill Lynch taken over by Bank of America.... the turmoil in financial markets is A ONCE IN A LIFETIME EVENT!

Do not underestimate the impact this will all have on the airline industry. It is going to get a LOT WORSE. You would have to be straight out of the loony bin to sign up for an integrate course now as this will take 3-4 years to work out not 12-18 months.

This is very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very bad..... the events of the next 6-12 months may well make recent events at XL look like a walk in the park.... ignore the warnings on here at your peril.

Now is the time for caution and hanging on to the job you have whatever it maybe and however unpleasant.... now is not the time for "chasing dreams!" :=

Rant over.... :uhoh:

Edited to add that BA in the market saying "this is the worst trading environment ever" :{

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

For those that understand finance and monetarism the horror of the coming crisis is in full view. For 95% of people it remains invisible.

Still, Oils down again.


WWW :\

[Re-Heat]

Not to mention that AIG (owners of ILFC - one of the largest owners of aircraft in the world) are also close to collapse, which could easily lead to massive order cancellations at both Boeing and Airbus

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Merrill Lynch have been 'bought' by Bank of America and Merrill was a MASSIVE corporate customer of BA. A big % of revenue came from Merrill.

Is that gone?

This is the 3rd phase of the credit crunch and probably the nastiest.


WWW

[Canada Goose]

Still, Oils down again.


Not at the pumps it ain't - the robbing gits !!! :*

[MIKECR]

Takes about 6 weeks for the fuel price to eventually filter through to the pumps.

Oil trading at $95 per barrel today.

[biaeghh]

WWW,
As you seem to be the man in the know does this spell the end of the lovely Sarah Beeny show???

:eek:
potentially gutted in Bmth

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Sarah is now promoting her company called something like www.thehomesalecahinarranger.co.uk which seems to be some kind of broker who for a %fee arranges to contact all members of a house sale chain and persuade them to drop by a proportionate amount.

Nice idea and it'll probably make her some more money. Which I wouldn't begrudge.

WWW

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

ps oil price is a sideshow.

[spinnaker]

As I write, the FTSI 100 is 221.9 points down on the day, a 4.1% drop in share values. A reverberation of the Lehman Bros collapse. Oil prices wont help this one. $18, $50 or a $100 a barrel, just doesn't matter. I would say that this is the worst for the banking/financial sector for over a 100 years.

Edit: Anyone want to take a punt on the FTSI dropping through the 5000 barrier today? :(

[boogie-nicey]

FTSE 100: The 5000 point is a natural support level so you should hopefully see a reversion back to this point but not immediately due to the momentum wait a week or two and as long as the waters remain calm it should get back to 5000. Nevertheless it's a bad time simply because we're driving in the dark with no lights and all the big players are holding their cards very close to their chest right up to the point where they fold. We can't even have the advantage of seeing it coming! Therefore how can we plan? Makes it very difficult but one things for sure we will be saddled with the repercussions and the public sector will continue growing :\

[Re-Heat]

Takes about 6 weeks for the fuel price to eventually filter through to the pumps.
Bear in mind that the US$/£ rate means that falling oil prices do not necessarily mean that it falls in the UK. Further, by pre-buying for the future, some companies selling petrol cannot reduce prices immediately.

The oil price is for a barrel of crude - car petrol is but a small part of the barrel and is priced by other aspects as well as the price of a barrel of crude.

[Grass strip basher]

There is a very strong probablity that a fall in the oil price is now too late to avoid an impending full blown aviation crisis. When this kicked off 12 months ago I was bearish but did not dream it could get this bad.

WWW the 95% of people that don't "get it" at the moment will "get it" soon enough... a road to Damascus conversion is about to land unpleasantly on their laps.... most of BA's profits come from 2-3 routes.... business class to NY, HK and maybe a bit of Jo'berg..... ain't gonna be many bankers flying around for a couple of years.... this will make 9/11 looks like a walk in the park as there will not be a "V-shaped" recovery.

[DUXBY]

I would think that there is slightly more than 95% who now "get it" unless
you don't read the papers or watch television or have not been reading this thread for the last couple of weeks.
I would agree we can expect to see some big outfits in trouble soon.
If you add to that some lo-co's who are still offering flights for pence then you will some of the larger more expensive carriers further squeezed. You only have to look at the woes of Alitalia and then to Zoom/Exel to see that trouble has moved from being associated to woeful inefficiency to those that are slightly inefficient.

[MIKECR]

Alitalia have been dead in the water more times than anyone could care to remember. No doubt, they'll be bailed out again.

[DUXBY]

Yep the Italians seem to make up their own rules. I hypothetical question,
do you think that likes of BA would be saved against EU rules if they were in trouble?

[MIKECR]

Probably not, but then we're speaking about Italian 'politics'.

I dont think the Uk governemnt would have any money to hand out anyway. Theyve succesfuly pi**ed it against the wall for the last 10 years. The well is dry.

[ix_touring]

back on topic and not withstanding today's plunge after the weekend's business...

the upturn is upon us as follows:

I can remortgage my house at rates from 4.99 to 6.3, variable or fixed as the fancy takes me.

I can also remortgage my Buy to let at 0% initial then 5.99% for a couple of years.

and I can relet my BTL for £200/month more than the current tenants pay too!

Both of these are looking for a not unreasonable 75% LTV...

Given the recent house price dive, not all will have 75% LTV or better, but even so, there are still tracker rates in the late 5's and early 6's for up to 95% LTV.

Recently, fixed rates have dropped and the trackers have gone UP slightly, suggesting the banks see rates falling for the next couple of years. this is supported by the current interbank lending rate being in the mid 4's.

Now then, the question is do I go for the mortgage rates now or hold off for the November drop and do it then?

iX

[BitMoreRightRudder]

No doubt, they'll be bailed out again.

Thats the interesting thing this time round. The current financial crisis makes it verging on the impossible for Berlusconi to just plunge more public cash into Alitalia's black hole of a spreadsheet. If they are to continue in any form I think they have to go bankrupt (they clearly have been for some time to be fair) and start again. The fall out that takes place over the next few years will surely change for good the last few flag carriers who simply don't make a profit and hide behind government handouts.

[MIKECR]

Anything fixed at less than 5% is very tempting. Base rate however is predicted to fall a bit further yet over the next year or so. Tracker may be just the way to go.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

back on topic and not withstanding today's plunge after the weekend's business...

the upturn is upon us as follows:

I can remortgage my house at rates from 4.99 to 6.3, variable or fixed as the fancy takes me.

I can also remortgage my Buy to let at 0% initial then 5.99% for a couple of years.

and I can relet my BTL for £200/month more than the current tenants pay too!

Both of these are looking for a not unreasonable 75% LTV...

Given the recent house price dive, not all will have 75% LTV or better, but even so, there are still tracker rates in the late 5's and early 6's for up to 95% LTV.

Recently, fixed rates have dropped and the trackers have gone UP slightly, suggesting the banks see rates falling for the next couple of years. this is supported by the current interbank lending rate being in the mid 4's.

Now then, the question is do I go for the mortgage rates now or hold off for the November drop and do it then?

iX


iX Both your house and Buy-To-Regret have produced a 12% loss in capital (17% in real terms) in the last 12 months and will do the same in the next. We weren't off topic in the first place and your property ramping is laughable.

Thank you.

WWW

[RVR800]

um depends where the house is ... Aberdeen?

[DUXBY]

"I can remortgage my house at rates from 4.99 to 6.3, variable or fixed as the fancy takes me"


Do you own this bank?

[Grass strip basher]

"interbank rates in the mid 4s" ha ha ha... which world are you living in?? Not the UK thats for sure.... 3 months LIBOR is this morning 5.54% i.e. still distressed... the 2-3 year SWAP rate which is arguably the most important for the UK mortgage market is at 5.35%.... need to add the banks spread to that which will be at least 100bps at the moment.... and the problem is the banks can't borrow money off anyone anyway so becoming a bit academic... also look at the "up-front fee" you will be paying to remortgage at 4.99%... you are only looking at part of the picture or smoking the good stuff. Keep pissing in the wind my friend.....

[Artie Fufkin]

Briefly going off topic; I was always told to work on the aviation job cycle turning approximately every 7 years.

The terrorist attacks in the US was the day when all the aviation jobs went during the last downturn.

Seems that the XL failure is turning out to be the point where the collective penny dropped that there is going to be pretty sparse recruitment for a few years.

XL went bust at 1am on 12 September 2008. That's 7 years and one hour!

How should we extrapolate the autumn 2004 upturn?

[nich-av]

It is confirmed: LH bought 45% of SN.

SN / Brussels Airlines was a troubled carrier built from the ashes of Sabena. Most of its fleet is made out of leased aircraft, except for the 4 or 5 BAE Avro's they own.

SN managed to turn marginal earnings for 5 consecutive years, amounting to 10-20 million euros a year.

Many people were concerned about SN's survivability through this year as it has a very limited cash flow and the marginal earnings of the previous years could turn into huge losses due to the hundreds of millions higher fuel bill.

Furthermore, the new Low-cost terminal built at BRU for the purpose of attracting Easyjet could have had terrible consequences for a SN on its own.

LH announced plans to further develop SN and make it join Star Alliance.

[Greg2041]

Do not underestimate the impact this will all have on the airline industry. It is going to get a LOT WORSE. You would have to be straight out of the loony bin to sign up for an integrate course now as this will take 3-4 years to work out not 12-18 months.

The BIG question. What happens to the majority of flying schools during the difficult times and how many do you think will fold?

Greg

[eikido]

I thought of that.
Don't you think many will stay with school to build time and keep raings current because they're not getting a job? + Lots of those who don't care about this crash and still join school.


Eikido

[ix_touring]

www, the topic was signs of an upturn, the discussion of XL, AZ et al is not a sign of the upturn. Interest rates lowering and improved mortgage availability is an indication that some "normality" is returning to the lending markets... (though clearly not the old normality)

As for 12% losses, well they're just paper profits and thus paper losses... only relevant if you bought recently, borrowed against it or at the point of needing to liquidate! (see below)

As with aviation, housing is cyclical, anyway, I hardly think I was ramping my (or any other) house! (perhaps you talking about the rent? It's well documented that rents have been very solid through the current turmoil, so hardly my hype, just fundamentals).

Buy to REGRET, hardly, we bought in Jan 01 and moved out in 04, its doubled in value in the 7 years (though now less the closer to 20%, rather than 12% in my area). I don't see a 20% loss of value as a loss to my capital, I wouldn't have had the £230K sitting in stocks or in cash being eroded by inflation and I don't see the equity as being the equivalent of cash, therefore it’s not capital: My tenant pays the bills, I gain from the gearing, in 10 years time (give or take a couple of years) it will be in the region of double its current (20% off) value and I will have spent around £1K p.a. to attain that.

All investing is a form of gamble! It goes up and down and you should only do it if you can afford to lose; I do know someone who bought a 20% overpriced off plan flat in town last October... I Hope he didn’t think of it as a short term investment!

Now, to suggest that I or anyone else use what’s left of the equity after the loss of value to pay for an integrated school.... I'm firmly in your camp and don't think this is the time for such an action

However, if you put a contract for employment at the start of the same integrated course, that may change my view…. (there are still some sponsored/funded courses out there).

iX

[Aerospace101]

However, if you put a contract for employment at the start of the same integrated course, that may change my view…. (there are still some sponsored/funded courses out there).

Dont think these are 'contracts' for employment. more like if there is a job when you graduate, mentored lot go to top of the list.

look at what happened to GB AIRWAYS 'cadets' at FTE last year.... (dont think they got jobs at gb/easy)

not 100% job guarantee... gona still gamble 70K!?

[ix_touring]

Contract:

Nejets/OAA - sign contract before you train, pass the training and get employed, training costs repaid.

There’s also an add in Flight running recently that looks to be a true cadet system (I cannot recall the airline/school).


As pointed out, these are NOT the CTC/Easy/Easy hold pool nod and wink system.

iX

[boogie-nicey]

Aviation is cyclic, housing as IX_touring says is cyclic but then again so are the seasons of Spring and Autumn. The bigger picture to those who choose to see is made up of all things cyclic both man made and natural. Therefore we must always view aviation within those terms that a weak economy or panic in other sectors of society will effect us in the aviation recruitment game.

Those that suggest that due to a few variables heading in favourable directions we will be saved doesn't necessarily mean we are out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination, one swallow does not make a summer. Oil, load figures, a few obtainable mortgages don't mean didilly against the backdrop of fear and panic, of which there seem's to be growing amounts in society at present. There are now so many disaster fires that governments have almost if not already played they last and best hand all they can do now is get the dummies guide to excuses book and wait it out. Aviation will also throw off alot of dead wood too during these lean times with weak operations and companies being forced out or made to implement modern systems and corporate processes for the future. This may also entail some of the crews that have had their innings and don't wish to go through this roller coaster anymore to bail out and do a bit of living along other walks in life.

IN the longer term what we are witnessing is the aircrew as employees on a spreadsheet and not the sky gods of yesteryear. This change in image and expectation will drive things further south in coming years. Prestige seems to be an elegeant yet old lady that is clearly a shadow of herself from former years and that's very much how I personally envisage the pilot of the future.

I'm sorry for this little piece probably full of my usual grammatical errors and no doubt thread drifting but some reason I just wanted to add my six pence worth too. I feel very .....

[ChrisLKKB]

Internal Ryanair memo posted by "whathehellwasthat"

To: All Pilots Date: 15th September 2008 Re: Recruitment Freeze Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, We have recently been inundated with applications from pilots whose employers (such as Zoom, Futura and XL) have gone bust in the past few weeks. We are also receiving applications from pilots who fear that their airline may go bankrupt shortly. Since we already have more than treble the applications we require for our possible future needs we have decided to impose a recruitment freeze with immediate effect (from 15th September) until further notice. This freeze will be reviewed again in early January 2009. Training courses already scheduled for October will be run as planned, however no further recruits will be added to these courses. Delayed aircraft deliveries due to the Boeing strike and a close to zero pilot attrition rate in recent months means that we are currently overstaffed in our pilot/flight operations department.We will continue to seek unpaid winter leave applications, particularly at our largest bases,Dublin and Stansted, where our winter base aircraft numbers have been reduced. If we do not receive sufficient applications on/before the end of September, then we will allocate unpaid leave to some Dublin and Stansted based pilots from November onwards. If you wish to apply for unpaid leave, please contact ***** ***** before the end of September. As always, even during these extremely difficult times, our focus will be upon maintaining jobs and the security of employment of all our pilots and people. Best regardsdo you think other airlines might follow suit ? (hint: at least one other is offering unpaid leave right now)

[Grass strip basher]

I love the idea that mortgages are becoming more accessible in the UK.... who are you kidding??... ha ha ha. Do you read the news papers?? Banks like HBOS are struggling to raise any cash at all at a suitable duration to write mortgages and all of the recent BoE surveys tell you they are still tightening lending criteria. The Bank of England will withdraw the Special liquidity scheme in a few weeks time and have not announced what the erplacement will look like yet.... but it will almost certainly be more expensive for the banks.... thinks have rarely looked worse not better!!

Just because you have a BTL investment and want to hope for the best does not detract from the fact that we are in the biggest financial crisis for a generation..... to say that banks are loosening their lending criteria and making more mortgages available is laughable... try coming and living on planet earth. :ugh: :ugh::sad:

[G-SPOTs Lost]

However, if you put a contract for employment at the start of the same integrated course, that may change my view…. (there are still some sponsored/funded courses out there).

If you are thinking about Netjets/OAT then I would be very surprised if this sees another 6 months, NJE have always made no bones about the fact that they likea good mix of GA Corporate people and full blown airline pilots the mix suits there business model of being a private airline.

The Zoom/Futura/XL guys will be first in the queue if they can afford to wait the 18 months to the LHS. They will see it as attractive because they can use their existing bases as gateways to work and won't need to move house. Many airline guys i think "quite fancy" NJE and the varied lifestyle it provides, in the light of nothing better on the horizon in the airline world they will probably stick a toe in the quasi-airline that is NJE and displace your cadet scheme fairly quickly. It will be another downturn victim for wannabees.

Edited to say NJE are heavily advertising for crew right now 1/2 page ads in flight at the time when pilots are coming onto the job market - no coincidence

[Grass strip basher]

How can net jets seriously still be expanding?? Every corporate in the world is slamming a ban on travel via private jets.... which part of there customer base is still growing to the extent that they need to take on additional pilots?
I would have thought Net Jets would be hit very very hard by a recession as people cut back on those little perks such as a private jet? Where is the flaw in my logic? :confused:

[MIKECR]

G-SPOT's Lost,

I've no idea which edition(Sept 2007 maybe??;)) of Flight your looking at but i cant see any ads from NJE. They turned of the recruitment taps nearly 2 months ago.

[heli_port]

Oil is currently under $100 which is good news ;) but it fell quite simply because the economy is slowing but you can bet your bottom dollar that once all this credit nonsense is sorted and the economy starts to grow again its up up and away with the oil price again.

http://img2.mysmiley.net/imgs/smile/fighting/fighting0002.gif (http://www.mysmiley.net/free-character-smileys.php)

[Re-Heat]

Oil is currently under $100 which is good news but it fell quite simply because the economy is slowing
Where are the airlines hedged though - that is the question

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Sideshow.


Sorry, :oh:

WWW

[JB007]

Where is the flaw in my logic?

The rich get richer...NJE also cater for wealthy individuals, not just corporations. Take a look at the IOM Aircraft Register, formed specifically for high net worth individuals private aircraft, a private A340-300 will be joining the 'fleet' before 2008 is through.

For approx the next 3 to 4 years your only hope of buying a new Falcon/Gulfstream/Cessna at short notice would be a cancellation. This market is booming worldwide...

[conerted_lurker]

US$ LIBOR nearly doubled today. AIG, RBS and HBOS down more than 20% today compared to horrendous falls yesterday. FTSE below 52 week low.

As oil is getting cheaper money is getting much much more expensive and there's only two things that make aeroplanes fly - kerosene and money.

AIG now down 31% - these boys own a third of the worlds fleet of leased airliners. Much much bigger than a couple of the worlds biggest investment banks. The CDS market is about to explode and there is nothing the Fed or the other Central Banks can do about it.

By the end of the year we could have mortgages at 11%. The current situation is fuelled by the Special Liquidity Scheme and its nearly over. The credit crunch in about to go Siberian. There is no way this cannot result in anything other than a severe and prolonged recession. House prices will fall by 45%. 5 million will be in negative equity.

Flying on holiday or on business will be a quaint memory.

If you don't understand the scale of the debt binge the West has been on since the Y2K non-event then you won't comprehend the amount of cold turkey now being plated up. There will be 3 million on the dole by the end of this.

Several banks will go. I wouldn't be suprised to see queues outside of Halifax branches by the end of the month. Bradford & Bingley by the end of the week.

THIS IS A CRISIS.

[ix_touring]

Hmm...


GSB - I didn't say mortgages are more accessible. I said that there are some reasonable RE mortgage rates, provided that you have a good track record and a 10 - 25% deposit (equity)... I live on the earth and am exposed to the day to day business of being self employed; I deal with both end users and small businesses, both are STILL using my SERVICE (ie they CHOOSE to pay someone to do something they could do for themselves).

Re NJE, they have not altered their delivery slots etc.

MCR - I haven't read all of this weeks Flight but last weeks did have 2 full page ads, one for flight crew, one for HQ staff.

007 - A340 is pictured in this week’s flight, on its way to an unnamed Russian... in brown and silver

CL - 11% ! If that's the prediction then it would be priced into the fixed rates being offered, as previously stated, they are coming DOWN and predictions are for rates to get to 4% (I have even read 3.5% by close of next year. If they DO hit 11% then at least I won’t be alone in my agony ;-)

If it really hits the fan, the kids can go to a state school! :E (where the rest of their classmates will also be :ooh:)

iX

[conerted_lurker]

Here.

The central bank base rate means nothing to banks starved of cash. Which is what will happen as capital is destroyed in great big multi billion dollar chunks as bank after bank defaults like Lehman. I fully expect yet another slashing of Interest Rates in the US today and it'll do cock all good.

They'll be offering savings rate of 10% just to suck money in the front door to give them enough tier 1 to keep trading. To make any profit the money being lent out will go to AAA rated credit rating borrowers and will be higher than the savings rates.

Few people get it. Oil at $91 this minute is simply because the market knows demand is going to fall off a cliff. Helicopter Bens mission to air drop bundles of cash has failed. Assets, commodities and bonds are all plunging in value and thus trurning the knife in the banks ribs. Hell, even Al Greenspan is talking about Depression and a once in a century event.

This is not some piddly little event like Sterling exiting the ERM or a Sept 11th style dip. This is the big one.

Bankers jumping off window ledges will be next.

[JohnRayner]

Bankers jumping off window ledges will be next.

Concrete umbrellas. That's my millions.

:ok:

[G-SPOTs Lost]

GSB

I was lucky enough to be offered a job with NJE about three years ago, this is a very structured organisation. When I had the offer letter I was given a choice of 12 Indoc dates for the following 12 months. Indocs will be being run every month at NJE right up until the new year and thereafter, they have no doubt managed to delay/swap slots with some manufacturers

Having said that the aircraft are coming, with lead times of upto 6 years for some Gulfstream products (which NJE operate) thinking about the next three months up until christmas isn't really relevant.

There are people making a killing on Bizjet positions even now with some heavy iron making 7 figure premiums even now.

As I said on the other thread there will be work in GA/Corporate over the next three years but it will not suit the guy who just aspires to sit in the RHS of a Boeing at 200hrs who cannot afford to serve any kind of apprenticeship because of a huge millstone called a training debt. I can foresee the pre JAR days of min 1000 hours returning and a renaissance of the "instructor route". With these minimum hours you may find yourself in a Jetstream if you are very lucky......

SOme of these posts regarding finance are a little alarmist but one thing is for sure airliner recruitment for wannabees is dead in the water you need to adapt or take a non flying job its that simple

[Grass strip basher]

G-Spot I will take a sportsmans bet with you the with the next 12 months Net Jets will be laying of a significant number of pilots.

Lurker is unfortunately right. YOU MUST UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON IN FINANCIAL MARKETS WILL BE DEVASTATING TO THE AVIATION INDUSTRY... FULL STOP!!!

This is not being alarmist it is fact... some people are still massively under estimating the size and scope of this crisis. In the last 48 hours it has got 10x worse than it was just a couple of weeks ago.:{

[conerted_lurker]

FTSE below 5000 means its lower than when Tony Blair entered Downing St. Minus 11 years inflation. The worlds largest insurer who owns the worlds largest fleet of airliners (ILFC) is on the brink of going bust just like the US number 5, 4 and 3 investment banks. The UK's biggest mortgage bank is down 50% in 48 hrs in the midst of a housing crash that is running at nearly twice the speed of the 1991 one. The CEO of BA says these are the worst trading conditions in 30 years and airlines are stranding passengers abroad by going bust left right and centre.

And the worst is yet to come.

If the alarms in your head aren't ringing yet then I suggest you consult a psychologist for engineering advice.

[spinnaker]

FTSE Getting close to dropping through 5000 which I though would happen yesterday.

edit: today's low 4,975.20 a few mins ago

[Sean Dillon]

G-SPOTS spot on!

Low hour job's are goney! For good, we'll see...it'll cost ya though and you can work out that Catch 22 for yourself..

[conerted_lurker]

There is fear on the streets in the Square Mile right now. If AIG and HBOS go down on the same day they might have to suspend trading. I've never known an atmosphere like this. The Oct 1997 crash was a party atmosphere compared to this.

[Re-Heat]

Bankers jumping off window ledges will be next.
I hope not - at least my window does not open.

Seriously though, it is a complete disaster everywhere in the City - and City people not flying is a disaster for aviation. Expect BA's share price to plummet in the near term...

[ix_touring]

If it really hits the fan, the kids can go to a state school!:

Oh the humanity. Anything but that.



No, the local ones round here ARE pants, the my kids don't suit hoodies and they can't fully manage a knife and fork at the table yet, let alone in a street fight. Plus and me and the wife don't do religion so the local convent etc are out as well :*

iX

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

When there's blood on the streets then you get the real investors coming out.. anyone seen Warren Buffet lately?

I doubt this is the end of the world.

I understand your concerns iX about schools. I note Grange Hill has been axed - was it impossible to realistically portray a modern comprehensive before the watershed...?


WWW

[Mikehotel152]

I have no sympathy for the City Boys and Girls. They've been making small fortunes gambling with other people's money for years and they laid one too many dodgy bets when they went into the subprime market.

What annoys me is that the general public - who didn't get the huge City bonuses or the hug salaries during the boom-time - are now going to suffer. :mad:

It seems the City benefits from the booms but the rest of us suffer the busts! :ugh:

[Celtic Pilot]

I agree wit Mike Hotel

All these big luxurious lifestyles for some people, not nessesscerily thought city people but majority are, have left us all in a big puckle all right!!!

And why is some people critisizing state schools,,,,u learn the same stuff, just because you dont get to wear coats with long tails...

At least in Ireland there arent many provate posh schools, although there are a few....

[Re-Heat]

I have no sympathy for the City Boys and Girls. They've been making small fortunes gambling with other people's money for years and they laid one too many dodgy bets when they went into the subprime market.
Really, please. If you can point me towards my small fortune, I would be enternally grateful, as I cannot see one in my bank account myself.

A very few people made a fortune, but most were just normal, and working to get by. Honestly, that comment is almost as bad as the furore about spread betting on the next airline to go bankrupt. Uninformed tosh quite frankly.

[Celtic Pilot]

Mike Hotel is right..


Big city luxurious lifestyles with the big penthouses has left everyone in a pickle...alrite....Some people get big salaries and in fairness wouldnt know what a hard days work actually is...

no offense to anyone!!!!!

[Re-Heat]

Big city luxurious lifestyles with the big penthouses has left everyone in a pickle...alrite....Some people get big salaries and in fairness wouldnt know what a hard days work actually is...
No, it is just ignorance, quite incorrect and far from the truth.

Most I know who do have the big salaries certainly work for it, and have the litany of failed marriages behind them to prove it.

[G-SPOTs Lost]

GSB

You're on :ok:

Not including the OAT cadets, lets wager £10 GBP on say....50 pilots getting the boot, I say No...you say Yes - Simple.

Proceeds to the PPrune fund or the Air Ambulance charity of the winners choice.

Here for all to see.....dont be welching on me like the guy who's not been seen or heard of since the Vulcan flew again...... it appears he was looking down the barrel of humming dixie whilst stood starkers in a Debenhams window of his choosing with a red rose between his teeth :eek: :eek:

I sincerely hope you are wrong, I have no doubt that you would be delighted for the sake of the 50 to hand over the dosh.

WRT the markets, the money is out there.... somebody has made a good few £€$ this week, that man needs a Gulfstream

Very surprised that ILFC are in the mire do you have a link......

[redsnail]

NJE look like recommencing interviews from Nov. (From the office).
Cadets coming online in Nov too. They'll be trickle fed into the pilot stream.

Recruitment has been flooded with applications from Spanair, Zoom and now XL. However, some will be put off with the now 18 month to 2 years predication for LHS.

So far no sign of slow down of deliveries, if anything, after the delays of this year, they're finally coming on thick and fast. Especially the Hawker 750.

Hawker 4000 and Falcon 7X should turn up either end of the year or next year. The crews are already being trained for the 7X. The H4000 has had a few teething problems... an understatement.

Re how NJE is going? Just fine. This is from one of the London bean counters. Sure, the flying rate has slowed down but that's also due to less positioning flights. NJE didn't lay any one off in 2001/2002. In fact, they grew. NetJets USA has not furloughed any one off in over 20 years. How many airlines can say that? The phenomenal growth that NJE has seen over the past 5 years has slowed but no one in the Flight Ops department is complaining. Finally a chance to breath!

Some folks aren't flying as much as they used to, our "high net worth people" aren't largely affected, we're getting more corporations joining as either they get rid of their individual jet or they realise wasting time at check in actually costs them money. (esp if more than 1 pax is flying) The other big bizjet corporations such as TAG have noticed the same thing.

The 2012 Olympics aren't far away. I reckon we'll be busy. All of us. :D

[Mikehotel152]

Oh come, come, I didn't say that everyone in the City is overpaid or that nobody worked hard for their extremely large profit-related bonuses. I never believed that there was an annual rush to the Porsche dealerships, nor that there was any link between house prices, Pink shirt shops, and the number of overflowing wine bars in Canary Wharf and City wages. :rolleyes:

Obviously many people worked very hard and deserved every penny of their salaries. That's the same in every industry. A family member is one of those people who was underpaid throughout her time in the City and is suing for sexual discrimination. She hasn't got two beans to rub together! Yet a friend bought his first Porsche after a year in Canary Wharf and 5 years later lives in a huge house in Surrey which has half a forest in its garden... and he wasn't regarded as the brightest guy in our peer-group!

Still, having this week spoken to a close friend who works high up for Lehman Brothers in NYC, and voiced the above opinions that so riled Re-Heat, and found that she agreed wholeheartedly, I stand by those comments. :ooh:

[hollingworthp]

The green-eyed beast is a terrible thing :D

[Re-Heat]

If you had said City bosses, I too would have agreed.

G-SPOTs Lost - Ref ILFC & AIG - http://www.pprune.org/airlines-airports-routes/343229-wall-street-speculates-ilfc-change-ownership.html

[Grass strip basher]

Thats right blame the city... not the bloke next door who took out the buy-to-let mortgage to make a quick buck on the housing market and now can't afford to pay it because interest rates have gone up... so he defaults.... and you say he is the victim and the bank is at fault!?!... the guy who took the mortgage is as guilty if not more so than the bank who gave him the money.... as is the wanabee that took a risk on training didn't get the job and defaulted on his loan.... these defaults are what is driving the broader crisis. People not honoring their responsibilities. It was greed across the board not just at the banks but all those people who took out cheap credit and over stretched themselves to consume today rather than work and save. :mad:

Anyway WHO IS TO BLAME DOES NOT MATTER NOW.... JUST BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES THIS IS GETTING VERY VERY BAD.... you will not see the likes of this crisis again in your lifetime. Look at the news... it is as bad as the headlines are saying. IT WILL IMPACT YOU AS WANABEE OR EXPERIENCED PILOT! THERE IS LIMITED FUNDING AVAILBLE TO AIRLINES TO ROLL OVER MATURING DEBT.... THIS KILLED XL AND OTHERS WILL FOLLOW.:(

[Lurking123]

I think there is an important point here that many are missing. The global financial 'adjustment' will effect everyone, not just our beloved aviation industry. There are few professions that will be recession proof (doctors, undertakers etc) and so the near future will be difficult regardless. Personally, I would be wary of walking away from any security that I already had.

[G-SPOTs Lost]

GSB

Thankyou for your PM

Indeed sir a Gentlemens bet, the wager is set. I share your sentiment that we hope to have no redundancys.... The Pprune fund is an excellent idea!

16th September 2009 already in the PDA wish you the worst of luck! ;)

Regards

PS no hard data on ILFC just bull**** speculation about the parent AIG, ILFC will be the first "crown jewel"to go to a well funded ME buyer or Berkshire (NJE parent) whose sizeable deposits will ease the presure on funding worrys

[smith]

Its not looking good guys in this memo from my company recieved today.To Our Valued Pilot Group


The airline industry is in a crisis. Its business model doesn't work with the current price of fuel and the existing level of capacity in the marketplace. We need to make changes in response.

While there have been several successful fare increases, those increases haven't been sufficient to cover the rising cost of fuel. As fares increase, fewer customers will fly. As fewer customers fly, we will need to reduce our capacity to match the reduced demand. As we reduce our capacity, we will need fewer employees to operate the airline. Although these changes will be painful, we must adapt to the reality of today's market to successfully navigate these difficult times.

Therefore, a program to phase out the more senior pilots by the end of the current fiscal year, via retirement, will be placed into effect immediately. Under this plan, senior pilots will be asked to take early retirement, thus permitting the retention of the new-hires who represent our future. This program will be known as SLAP (Sever Late-Aged Pilots). Pilots who are SLAPPED will be given the opportunity to look for jobs outside the company. SLAPPED Pilots can request a review of their employment records before actual retirement takes place. This review phase of the program is called SCREW (Survey of Capabilities of Retired Early Workers). All pilots who have been SLAPPED and SCREWED may file an appeal with upper management. This appeal is called SHAFT (Study by Higher Authority Following Termination). Under the terms of the new policy, a pilot may be SLAPPED once, SCREWED twice, but may be SHAFTED as many times as the company deems appropriate.

If a pilot follows the above procedure, he/she will be entitled to get: H€RP€S (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel's Early Severance) or CLAP (Combined Lump sum Assistance Payment). As H€RP€S and CLAP are considered benefit plans, any pilot who has received H€RP€S or CLAP will no longer be SCREWED or SHAFTED by the company.

Management wishes to assure the younger pilots who remain on board that the company will continue its policy of training pilots through our: Special High Intensity Training ($#!T). We take pride in the amount of $#!T our pilots receive. We have given our pilots more $#!T than any company in this area. If any pilot feels they do not receive enough $#!T on the job, see your Chief Pilot. Your Chief Pilot is specially trained to make sure you receive all the $#!T you can handle.

And, once again, thanks for all your years of service with us.

Sincerely,

Your Well-compensated Golden-parachute-in-position Senior VP Management Leadership Team

Sorry folks, a bit of light hearted relief in these troubled times. WWW please move it to jet blast if deemed more appropriate.:ok:

[ix_touring]

Way off topic but in response to a previous post:

Re getting out the fiddle....state schools.... all learning the same etc etc.

My 7 year old has just started (at his request) playing the violin at school. He has been playing the piano for 1 year already (taught at school too).

*HE* has also passed his first grading in ballet (he's been doing it at school for a couple of years) and has had no hint of a problem from the other boys at school. (a few of them do tap).

He also plays rugby/football/cricket/gym etc at least twice a week in school, on a proper playing field or gym.

95% of the year 2 kids gave up their break time at least once a week through the year to form a choir.

The national curriculum has ensured that all kids are taught the same things...

The reason I send my kids to private school is to ensure they learn more than that is required to put a tick in a government tick box.


No doubt there are state schools out there that go beyond the minimums; the ones where I live don't.

iX

[ChrisLKKB]

Sounds like you could have a future pilot in the making although i'm sure you'd rather he made something of himself :p

[BitMoreRightRudder]

Your Chief Pilot is specially trained to make sure you receive all the $#!T you can handle.


:E

ps, smith, you're sacked.

[ix_touring]

If they choose to be a (insert derogatory job here) then so be it, its the kids who go through the sausage factories and end up as (insert derogatory job/dole queue here) and don't know any different due to uninterested/selfish parents and tick box schools that wind me up.


Now, back to topic... the upturn is upon us because....

The russians are buying widebody jets for private use and here's a pic of the new private A340, also the last of the -200's according to Flight.

Airliners.net | Airplanes - Aviation - Aircraft- Aircraft Photos & News (http://www.airliners.net/photo/Bourkhan/Airbus-A340-313X/1396125/L/)

iX

[JB007]

I gather the above A340 will be registered M-ABUS (IOM Register) for any spotters!!!!

WILL IMPACT YOU AS WANABEE OR EXPERIENCED PILOT! THERE IS LIMITED FUNDING AVAILBLE TO AIRLINES TO ROLL OVER MATURING DEBT.... THIS KILLED XL AND OTHERS WILL FOLLOW.

So, Grass Strip Basher as a PPL only, got to ask - you base this on what experience of major airlines/experienced pilots?!?

[nich-av]

WILL IMPACT YOU AS WANABEE OR EXPERIENCED PILOT! THERE IS LIMITED FUNDING AVAILBLE TO AIRLINES TO ROLL OVER MATURING DEBT.... THIS KILLED XL AND OTHERS WILL FOLLOW.


Correction, this killed a weak airline and will kill other weak airlines.
If you reverse the argument, would you, as an ab-initio, prefer to have 300 airlines to choose from of which 250 are "weak airlines" or would you rather hope to get a job in a market where there's only 150 airlines to apply to but 100 of them offer you job security.

Weak airlines will go, strong airlines will take over where they leave (if there's a point in doing that) and offer new, secure jobs.
The airline industry is going through a cleaning process.

Olympic Airways is also going down, the last rumours say...

In Europe, there'll soon be only a few majors to pick from. LH/LX/SN/BM/SK, AF/KL/OS, BA/IB for longhaul, FR/EZY for shorthaul.
The times of each country counting 5 to 15 airlines is over.

[Grass strip basher]

JB 007 my observation is based off the 12 years spending 70 hours a week meeting the CEO/CFOs and studying the institutions that lend money to the airlines to keep your aircraft in the air. Plus listening to my colleagues who spend all their days analysing the airline industry and are on first name terms with the CFO and CEO of all of Europes major airlines.

I come at it from the financial markets side and relay on here what you may not be able to see from sitting up the pointy end. I have no agenda or intention to tell you your job.... just a passion for aviation having come from a long line of pilots (grandfather RAF bomber command, father BA pilot all his life). I am just giving you it straight from the guys that provide the money to grease the wheels of the global economy. I don't care if you don't believe me, all I want to do let you know that the institutions that have been providing debt to the economy now want it repaid... and that is going to hurt.

This has absolutely nothing to do with your skill set in terms of being able to operate a 737/A320 safely.... unfortunately there are bigger issues afoot. Equally as a full ATPL sat at 30,000ft you can have no idea what we look at everyday when studying the financials of these companies in minute detail or indeed comprehend how what is going on in the city will effect your daily life.

All I am trying to do is flag that there is a big bus hurtling towards you at 100 miles an hour... some have now seen it and are bracing themselves.... others are still looking at the view out of the cockpit window..... but hey since I started the original "growing evidence the downturn is upon us" thread everything has been alright hasn't it??.... unless you worked for AL, Zoom, Futura etc etc .... so frankly sir you can shove your patronising "as only a PPL" up your ar*e.... we are not all fresh out of nappies... and the fountain of all knowledge does not necessarily reside in the fart box at the front of an aluminium tube at 30,000ft.

[ix_touring]

GSB, are these the same big brained suits that got us into this in the first place.... :ugh: Glad to know that they did their job managing risk before and now they are using their own predictions again to manage us out again... oh dear! :*

iX

[Grass strip basher]

This is not about me, I have tough skin and and more than happy to take the personal flak that is typically aimed at people that are the bearers of bad news. I like the idea that it was the "big brained suits" that got us into this.... the everyday people who borrowed beyond their means and are now failing to fullfil obligations they signed up to are also at the heart of this problem.... they are not "victims".... they are just as bad/guilty as the big brained suits.

What has happened in the past is history... what young wanabees can alter is the future and spending money on a flashy integrated course today is a bigger risk than it was 1-2 years ago. If you disagree with what I am saying or can offer evidence it is factually incorrect feel free to offer evidence to the contrary... this is an open forum after all.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

PPRuNe has two essential strengths.

The first is that it puts you in contact with other Wannabes. Just knowing that you are not alone and not the only one with the same hopes and fears and questions is wonderful.

The second is that it puts you in contact with industry insiders. The amount and specific value of the information and advice they can provide is immense and inavailable elsewhere unless your Dad is Willie Walsh.

An area where we have never had much 'coverage' is from the finance side of the business. As every pilot knows - the thing that makes aeroplanes fly is money. As such I am extremely grateful for Grass Strip Basher bringing his City view of the industry and therefore Wannabeism. I have an amateur interest in economics-finance and a professional interest in flying. I find it extremely useful to find someone for whom the opposite is true.

Personally I don't 'blame' the players who created the mess as much as the regulators and governments that failed to stop them.


WWW

[heli_port]

Personally I don't 'blame' the players who created the mess as much as the regulators and governments that failed to stop them.
Totally agree with you www on this point. Before i jumped ship and joined OAA i used to be on a trading desk with a major financial institution earning substantial amounts of money which is now paying for my training, am i apologetic for the things i did? hell no! i made money and s*it loads of it and i got rewarded at the end of the year. Personally i made loads on commodities (mainly oil :E) etc and i did it within the framework set-up by my employer and the regulator.

My employer didn't really care what i was doing at the best of times just as long as i was bringing in business. Over the past few days i've made loads short selling HBOS and i am still making loads today as the share price rebounds muahahahahahaah

If people don't want this mess again the FSA/BoE need to take note and the financial institutions need to change the way the investment culture thrives - do i think it will happen? hell no http://img2.mysmiley.net/imgs/smile/evilgrin/evilgrin0013.gif (http://www.mysmiley.net/free-love-smileys.php)

Stop your moaning and whining when things pick up again you'll all be fine (and people like me will be a more richer) http://img2.mysmiley.net/imgs/smile/evilgrin/evilgrin0030.gif (http://www.mysmiley.net/free-happy-smileys.php)

Anyway back to learning about clouds :p

http://img2.mysmiley.net/imgs/smile/fighting/fighting0001.gif (http://www.mysmiley.net/free-unhappy-smileys.php)

[littco]

And it's people short selling shares especially HBos that is causing alot of the problems... "trash and Cash"

Yes I know it's not illegal and plenty of people are making money out of it, but to be honest it's not something to boast about !! So you made some money out it.... The FSA are taking an unprecedented inquiry into HBOS and short selling, why? because it's bad for the comany and the economy...

[spinnaker]

Heli_port,

it wont be just down to the FSA/BoE. The whole monetary system needs a re-think on a global scale, other wise we face this type of melt down every so often. That's where we come in, if we were to curb the fractional reserve banking system and alter the way debt is accounted for, that is likely to restrict economic growth, and ultimately our own wealth. The reason I say 'we' is because this type of thing needs to come from government, not the banking sector, so we, need to vote for a government that will do that, if that is what we want. It's been said by a number of prominent top experts that these events will happen. It really has nothing to do with the Sub Prime markets, that's just where it started, it could easily have sparked off in another area of the financial sector. It's the system itself and the amount of debt used to create wealth that is at the root. There is a lot of debt that now has to be paid off. The party is over, we have one hell of a hangover and 'hair of the dog' wont be any use.

[olster]

While I agree about personal responsibility in terms of paying back large loans for houses,flying courses etc....I do think that these financial institutions could have shown more intelligence in how they lent money.Fairly obviously,this is the genesis of the current mess.For example,I would like to purchase my own learjet.I go to the bank and quite quickly they correctly deduce that I could not(ever!) afford it.Hence they do not lend me the money.Ludicrous example I agree,but I hope you get the point.

b/rgds

[spinnaker]

littco,

I feel the recent share price of HBOS might have something to do with the exposure to AIG.

[Grass strip basher]

No not AIG... I believe you will find it is concerns about balance sheet funding rather than direct exposure to AIG.... they have c£250bn more loans than deposits and they have to get that money in wholesale market which are barely open. BBC reporting they will be merged with Lloyds.

[littco]

Spinnaker:

AIG may have been instrumental with HBOS and many others fate but the fact remains short selling instills a lack of confidence in a company which can only be damaging, whether it comes from false rumours or a linked company such as AIG the result will not and can not be good.

Ok so the FSA called off their inquiry in August after it believed that in march illegal short selling was taking place. It had no proof of the rumours, but now the company is in free fall on it's own and is only being helped by traders short selling...The fact remains in order to short sell you borrow!!! borrow something you don't own and thus you are gambling something you don't own either...When it all goes wrong, who ends up paying for it?

Give hel_port his due , he's doing it for himself and making money out of it.. But if it all goes wrong for him, who's going to bail him out?! Maybe he has the capital to cover it?! I don't know.. but it's all a gamble and as we have seen making the markets very unstable...

As with all of life, one mans loss is another mans gain and this is no differnet..By the sounds of it Heli_port is gaining and good luck to him...

[spinnaker]

I wouldn't dispute short selling has been very damaging and that practice does need looking at. But what sparked it all off with this one particular bank? I'm not completely convinced the balance sheet is the whole story

Commentator on Radio 4 says that without the merger with LTSB HBOS could be at risk from a run on the bank. Now that's serious.

[ChrisLKKB]

Hopefully that wont transpire...
From the FT updated at 13.33
“One minute we were looking at a possible run on the UK’s largest mortgage and savings bank, then the next we have a huge rebound on the merger story. Confidence is the key factor here and the fact is that the banks are vulnerable. Credit is still tight and overnight funding rates are at astonishing levels and that only adds to any funding concerns”.None the less the whole banking system and practices are being brought into question. Suggestions are that once the dust settles on the smouldering wreck of the banking system that cheap money will be gone and banks will opperate more cautiously (similar to the practices of the 1950's). After the recession, growth will probably be slow and steady which imo will mean recruitment freezes could last well beyond 2009. (that is if people can still afford to fly).

[JB007]

...will mean recruitment freezes could last well beyond 2009. (that is if people can still afford to fly).

Very true, 2012 possibly. Interesting to see how the two remaining holiday companies are now gaining from the loss of XL. Very impressed at how pro-active my employer has been in the past 7 days - twist and turns still to come.

[Philpaz]

Very impressed at how pro-active my employer has been in the past 7 days

My Mrs is ex XL, now a manager with FCA/Thompson. She was horrified to see FCA prices of the SFB flights almost treble overnight while her friends were out of work and in shock with no mortgage payments in the bank.
But hey, thats business. I immagine XL' demise will serve TCA/MYT and FCA/TOM very well in there own bids for survival. Cant see either of them going south but then I never expected HBOS or AIG to be fighting for life either.

[Grass strip basher]

Unfortunately things have taken a significant turn for the worst again in the last 2-3 hours (and it was hard to imagine that it could get worse) :uhoh:

US banks are tanking again and CDS spreads have blown out (the effective costs of a bank to borrow money). This is now the mother of all crisis and rivals the turmoil of the Great Depression. Be afraid.... very afraid.... I am:ooh:

[spinnaker]

What little money I have, is now stuffed under the mattress

[ix_touring]

BoE extends liquidity scheme:

UPDATE 2-BoE extends liquidity scheme as turmoil intensifies | Markets | Bonds News | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSLH67786720080917)

iX

[littco]

Hey at least there is some light

Now LLoydsTSB may be buying HBOS no more annoyingly crap adverts with Howard and the other singing tw*ts.... A small ray of hope :ok:

[littco]

US banks are tanking again and CDS spreads have blown out (the effective costs of a bank to borrow money). This is now the mother of all crisis and rivals the turmoil of the Great Depression. Be afraid.... very afraid.... I am

Goldman Sachs down 41% today
Morgan Stanley down 25% today

Think I'm going to be joining grass strip basher in being very afraid!!!

[spinnaker]

Cheer up, well just have an interlude anyway.

The following links do contain swear words:

The olympics (http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/britain-****-again-200808191183/)

H,B,O,S (http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/everyone-making-everything-worse%2c-all-the-time-200809171261/)

Made me smile

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Perhaps now is the time is to unveil the PPRuNe Wannabe Bunker Complex that I have been secretly constructing this past 18 months under my silage pit.

It comes equipped with enough food, water and BGS groundschool notes to keep 20% of UK Wannabes alive for the 5 years of Depression.

With one fifth of believers surviving the coming storm we will be able to re-stock and start again once the aftermath has passed. And Loe - there shallt be a New World. One free from the SSTR, one where the Modular and the Integrated will break bread together, where the reckless moneylenders will be thrown from the temple and the CAA thieves will be starved at the gates. And in this glorious New World will return the promised land of the Airline Cadetship. And it will be good!


I need to lie down.

;)


WWW

[G-SPOTs Lost]

Nurse.....Nuuuuurrrrsssseee.....

WWW's out of bed again.......

Nuuuuuurrrssseee............

:}

[Philpaz]

And All that i shall speak of shall come to pass..........

Humour from WWW, things must be looking up. :E

[JB007]

Now that made me laugh! Nice one WWW

Those Beaujolais fuelled posts are just the best...excellent year for it by the way, but i've only tried the red...!!!!

[conerted_lurker]

Albert Edwards, global strategist at Société Générale, said Washington's serial bail-outs are the inevitable result of the credit bubble of preceding years.

"This was all baked in the cake long ago. What we have seen so far is just a dress rehearsal for the deep recession that is coming. America is going to be losing 500,000 jobs a months. That is when we will see interest rates go to zero. The deficit will be covered with printed money as it was in Japan. The endgame will be helicopters full of cash dropped by Ben Bernanke," he said.


That is a serious man at a serious bank saying something incredibly serious. That really is something to be scared about.

[Re-Heat]

So, for all the doubters who believed that a full aircraft meant that the airlines were performing well, here is the evidence that not only are people paying far less but also costs are rising - a true coffin corner for the businesses (FT.com):


Air fares nosedive amid falling travel demand
By Roger Blitz in London

Published: September 18 2008 03:00 | Last updated: September 18 2008 03:00

Falling demand for business and leisure travel is causing a marked decline in air fares, with UK fares to North America declining by nearly a half, according to American Express.

Air fares peaked earlier this year as a result of rising oil costs. But the slowing global economy has caused that to reverse.

The lowest economy class fares in Europe, the Middle East and Africa fell on average by 12.5 per cent in April to June compared with the first quarter, with long-haul fares down more than a quarter.

But UK fares suffered the sharpest falls, with the lowest economy fares down by an average of 20.2 per cent, including a 49 per cent fall in fares to North America and a 22 per cent decline in fares to Japan, Asia-Pacific and Australia.

Amex's twice-yearly Business Travel Monitor reveals the extent to which air prices have yo-yoed in the first six months of 2008. Economy fares rose on average by 7.1 per cent in January to March, including a 15.5 per cent rise from the EMEA region to North America. In the first quarter, the lowest economy fares in the UK rose by 11.3 per cent, and standard business fares were up by 6.2 per cent.

The volatile fares have added to the strains in the airline industry.

Joakim Johansson of Amex said: "Trading conditions for airlines have become increasingly difficult in the first half of the year, and 24 airlines filed for bankruptcy in the period, just under half of which were based in Europe."

Amex says increased competition on transatlantic routes created by the launch of Open Skies on April 1 is driving down prices on business class fares. Since April, average business class fares have fallen 25 per cent for London to Newark, and 24 per cent for London to New York's JFK.

London business class fares to Los Angeles and Seattle are down 9 per cent.

On a year-on-year basis, the cheapest economy fares are down 10.9 per cent and standard business fares have fallen 4.3 per cent.

Hotel rates in Europe, the Middle East and Africa have also fallen over the second quarter compared with the first. Average daily rates in 41 out of 48 cities in the region rose 6.9 per cent year on year in January to March, but by June, average falls of 3.6 per cent were being recorded in 30 cities.

The euro's strength has caused demand for hotel rooms in Europe from international visitors to tumble and forced prices down. In Paris, hotel prices fell 37 per cent in the second quarter while those in Rome fell 32.4 per cent. London was down 7.7 per cent in the second quarter, and other financial centres suffering were Frankfurt, Edinburgh and Geneva.

"The European hotel market is entering a new phase, with slower demand and lower rates," said Amex's Karen Penney. "After years of strong growth, our analysis shows that rates paid by Amex customers are decreasing in many core European destination cities."


Easyjet warns of tough times ahead
By Toby Shelley

Published: September 17 2008 09:01 | Last updated: September 17 2008 18:48

EasyJet has warned that the strength of the euro and a worsening consumer environment in the UK would slow the strong gains in revenue per seat it had achieved over the summer.

The low-cost carrier, commenting in the light of failures among rival aircraft operators such as Zoom and XL, estimated the industry faced a reduction in capacity of between 2 and 4 per cent over the winter. But it said conditions remained too volatile for it to forecast how that reduced capacity would help its efforts to protect yields on its own flights.

Revenue per seat at EasyJet rose about 15 per cent in the second half. But faced with high fuel costs, adverse currency movements and a worsening economic climate, EasyJet will only modestly increase the number of seats it offers over the winter, as it attempts to defend margins.

For the next financial year, EasyJet said it had hedged 48 per cent of its fuel requirements at $1,225 a tonne, a sharp increase in volume from the 28 per cent it had hedged by late July, and at a lower price. It has also hedged 70 per cent of its dollar requirement at $1.96 to the pound and 80 per cent of its anticipated euro surplus at €1.24 to the pound.

The airline first warned in March that full-year profits would be lower, then analysts downgraded their profits estimates by a quarter. When the company suggested in July the fall would be about 40 per cent, it slipped 10 per cent.

Rival Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair has also seen strong passenger figures but serious erosion in its profitability. It has said it could fall into a full-year loss for the first time in 11 years.

EasyJet shares fell 8¼p to close at 350p on Wednesday.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

[Mikehotel152]

Ppruners are rightly - IMHO - complaining about the City's Banking practices, including short-selling; others are pointing out that the absurd house-price bubble had to burst at some point; and it's probably true to say that the decision by OPEC to reduce oil supply is out of our hands. But taken in isolation, can we not work around each of these problems?

And is it not fair comment to say that the media's 'doom and gloom' way of reporting all news (they've never reported good news with a fraction of the enthusiasm of bad news) is now worsening the situation vis-a-vis the 'recession'?

[clanger32]

[putting head above parapet and preparing to be shot]
Guys,
Whilst there is a lot of sense and intelligent posting going on here and a fair amount of personal opinion masquerading as knowledge [speaking also from 10+ years in invesment banking world - latterly Reuters, formerly Barclays Capital], this particular thread was supposed to be about a mythical upturn.

This has now turned into just about the most suicide worthy thread I have ever read. Do ANY of you think there is any advanced training stage wannabe out there who is not aware of the current predicament?

This thread seems to have become about finding the biggest, deepest most painful cut you can find on any given wannabe and applying an industrial sized handful of salt to it, rubbing it in with some undiluted surgical spirit for good measure.

What we wannabes who are too advanced to back out now really need, from those with experience, is advice as to how best to stay current, where we might hope to find jobs, how to make the contacts which might best serve us when/if an upturn starts. Yet, what you're giving us is a self congratulatory lecture on how stupid we all were to start [in the best period of employment for years].

How about trying to find a little compassion for those that are being swept up by this maelstrom and will be utterly boned. How about simply stopping trying to ram it further down anyone elses throat. Congratulations, you were right. I hope that it makes you feel better....now can we get back to what this forum - if not necessarily this post - is supposed to be about.

P.S. I'm not even talking so much about me...my course was paid for by my savings so I have no debt and I have a damn good career to fall back on - but there are 18 year olds out there whose entire lives could be f***ed by this. It doesn't show you in a good light if you think this is funny, or deserved by a single one of them.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

On the contrary. The media have constantly spun that the house price crash wouldn't happen, that there would be no recession and that the credit crunch was nearly over. And short selling is nothing new and nothing bad. Its just betting on a share price and in itself does nothing to cause that price to fall.

This is a once in a century event. It is highly plausible that it will be worse for Wannabes than the Sept11th or the 1991 recession was. Simply make whatever plans suit this new reality and your personal circumstance.

For all I know a total drought for unsecured lending may result in a total drought of low hour pilots and thus if you time things correctly you could have your pick of a first job if you can afford to train without debt. That timing is the tricky bit.

I doubt its any time soon.

Good luck,


WWW

[thefunky1]

Just read this article: FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - How to meet the dangers facing Britain (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/49726416-84ca-11dd-b148-0000779fd18c.html)

"...The UK should not want housing finance to behave as it did in the years leading up to August 2007 ever again..."

Maybe not the crux of the bigger picture and certainly the article isn't going to magically solve our problems but I have to agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments above.

Mrs and I are both qualified lawyers and the client she dealt with the other day was the perfect example of reckless lending.

I'm training (pilot), sh*t scared but thankfully not in debt to any financial institution to do it.

[Jonty]

In the same article:

"Final “do not”: do not panic. The UK economy ought to be able to get through this crisis without a recession as deep as those of the early 1980s and 1990s. Much of the heavy weight of the crisis is, fortunately, falling on the broad shoulders of the US government. The British government merely needs to deal with the local difficulties. These will be many. But they will surely be manageable."