War in Iraq-Prospects?

[The flying gunman]

Leaving aside personal political opinions of the approaching conflict what effect is this going to have on low houred wannabes? The previous Gulf war in 1991 devastated the airline industry on a greater scale than 9/11. I have the JAA theory completed and was about to embark on cpl/ir in March but I am now considering to wait and see. I really don't want to throw away another 20 grand if the job market is going to go stale for four or five years.

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Well there are as many opinions as people on this one.

Suffice to say a good strategy would be to avoid big training commitments until the shooting is over IF you can do so. I wouldn't want to commit to an IR for example before the war effect is clear. Similarly I wouldn't want to quit my career to enrol on an Integrated course until the war effect it clear.

ATPL study, PPL and hour building, even the CPL module could be started in a period of great uncertainty as they have long expiry periods.

My own view is pretty grim. Gulf War 1 period saw the demise of Dan Air and Air Europe. The younger Wannabes may well be unfamiliar with these two airlines - I suggest you Google some background. We are talking major UK airlines...

This time I think a lot of the damage has already been done by Sept11th. That said the market will only head down if war prevails. Which can only be bad news for Wannabes.

Good luck,

WWW

[scroggs]

The effects of the attack on the WTC and the simultaneous recession in the airline industry have left many airlines - worldwide - fairly weak financially. However, the probable effects of Gulf ll have been factored into the more prudent forecasts by the majors and, more importantly, by their banks. So, while I could see a couple of the weaker airlines going under, or perhaps some further consolidation in the European and US markets, I doubt that Gulf ll on its own would have that great an effect.

Far more worrying, in the UK at least, is the slowdown in consumer spending. As the vast majority of airline travel just now is leisure, any reduction in 'discretionary' (ie unnecessary) spending will directly affect our industry. A 5% loss of trade would, if all else were equal, ensure that nearly all UK airlines made a loss next year. There isn't a great deal of room for manoeuvre on cost control left, and most indicators are that our costs will increase for the first half of the year.

It's going to be a difficult time, with or without a war.

Scroggs
Virgin/Wannabes Moderator
[email protected]

[Flypuppy]

If you have the ATPL ground exam passes in the bag it might be prudent to complete the CPL/ME training and have a commercial licence issued. This at least protects your exam passes. It also means that when there are signs of an upturn in the market the IR should only take 2 months (wx permitting :rolleyes: ). This means that if we time it right the IR skills will still be fresh and sharp, ready for a sim session. It isn't just the cost of initially getting the IR, but also the cost of keeping it current, and on current prices that would probably be in the region of 2-3k per year.

I guess it depends on how quick and ugly the fracas in the Gulf is. If things go very quickly with few casualties and peace and stability are returned to the region then maybe by September/October airlines will be hiring again. Alternatively if it starts to go wrong with long drawn out campaign, large amounts of caualties other countries being drawn into the conflict etc etc then I suppose we are going to be stuck on the ground for a while.

[Luke SkyToddler]

I say lets get it over with! All this grim talking and military buildup has been going on for what feels like years ... Bush is plainly obviously not going to get out of Iraq without a shooting war, so go on man and get stuck in, take out poor old Saddam and then p!ss off again so the world can stop shaking in its boots and get on with the economic recovery.

[foghorn]

Couldn't have put it better myself, Luke.

[Stratocaster]

If I recall correctly, in the first days of the Gulf War, Saddam said something about hitting the enemy where it hurts and mentioned, directly or indirectly I'm not sure, the airline industry. You probably know the rest (fuel prices went up, insurance costs went up, but load factors didn't follow).

In this case, IF there's another war (hey, who knows what Bush' advisers have in mind, maybe you'll find Saddam enjoying a nice pina colada on Miami Beach next winter ? Considering everything he has done for the US defence industry, I wouldn't be surprised), I doubt Saddam would be stupid enough to call for terrorist attacks again. It would "legitimate" the war the US tries so hard to sell for so long.

With the other oil producers more than ready to maintain a constant flow -worldwide- even if Iraq ceased all deliveries, I don't think the oil prices would go through the roof again. There would be some fluctuations of course (to the greatest benefit of the producers who need cash to pay for the shiny warplanes they bought to the US), but nothing scary.

Regarding insurance costs, what could be worse than what we're going through now ?

I'll agree with Scroggs on this one. But, as we all know, perception is guided by expectations and intentions. Maybe I'm a little too confident.
;)

To be honest, what would scare me, is that a war might spread far beyond the Iraqi borders (Kurds want their independance, Turkey will never let this happen, same with the Muslims on the Southern Iraq/Iran border). In that case, we'd be in for a lot of trouble.

[Hoping]

Luke:

How about the thousands upon thousands of Iraqi people who are going to die because of

1. Bombing
2. Ground attacks
3. Long term effects/sanctions after the war is finished
(the list goes on...)

The death of thousands of people is not an acceptable trade-off for securing our precious "economic recovery". If it was your family going to die or starve I'm sure you wouldn't be so keen to let blood and oil thirsty Bush have his way.

[Luke SkyToddler]

You're right Hoping. I think it's bloody disgusting the way the American administration are behaving over this (and North Korea for that matter, and everywhere else that George W has decided he is going to be the self imposed global sherriff). I think most of the free world feels the same to be honest.

Unfortunately messr's Bush and Blair have shown themselves completely unwilling to listen to any kind of reason over this one and like I said before I don't think they are the least bit interested in pulling back from Iraq until they have had their little war.

Hence, 'lets get it over with'. Bush is rightly or wrongly going to have his war and lets face it, there's nothing the rest of the world can do to stop him. People in Iraq are suffering already, at least once Saddam is dead and the boys have installed some puppet pro-american government there, then they can get some humanitarian aid in there and start trying to return life to normal for its citizens.

The most relevant side effect for us of course, will be that the airlines can stop worrying about it at last and get on with the job of hiring us all.

I've been told off by the mods before for side tracking wannabe-related threads into global political rants so I'll leave it at that :)

[kissmysquirrel]

hoping:
slightly off topic here but aren't the iraqi's suffering already because of saddams regime? starving, dying, being killed by their own leader in chemical weapons testing? Maybe it's kinder just to put them out of their misery?

[Stratocaster]

In the part of the world where I live, airlines have buried expansion plans somewhere deep inside their PC's hard drive, waiting to see what's going to happen next in the Middle East.

The only pilot selection I've heard of, was not to hire pilots, but just to have a few competent folks ready once the thick dark clouds will slowly go away.

Reminds me what somebody said in the 20's: "In order to save money, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off".

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Geo political hand wringing belongs elsewhere.

It is perfectly legitimate here to frame all discussion of war in the context of airline recruitment.

Its not callous or narrow minded. It simply refelects the high degree of specialisation of this particular forum.

Cheers,

WWW

[Lazlo]

This time (Gulf War II) the airlines are able to draw from past experience (Gulf War I). The lesson is simple:

Bombs start dropping - airline bookings stop
Bombs stop dropping - airling bookings pick up again

If, as Luke mentioned earlier, this war is inevitable, then lets hope it is short because if the bombs are dropping for any significant length of time then we will see some airline economic casualties as well. As far as I am concerned they could send the bill to Tony Blair but that isn't going to happen unfortunately.

I cling to the hope that this is just sabre-rattling in order to get saddam to do what they want. However, I fear that the US government is not clever enough to think of such a thing. Tony Blair might be, but I just don't trust him (never have, never will).

Lazlo

[Hoping]

Fair enough Luke, I'm glad that you see whole picture.

KissMySquirrel:
Just like Bush, Saddam is not a good man. But the Iraqi people's suffering has a great deal to do with the fact that we destroyed the infrastructure of their country in 1991 and the sanctions we have placed on Iraq in terms of imports and exports. For instance they have great difficulty keeping livestock alive because of certain essential drugs we do not allow them to import in case they try to use them against us. More to the point, surely the people of Iraq should be the ones who decide if they are to be "put out of their misery" and I assure you, they do not.

WWW: I personally think that the imminent death of thousands of innocent people is more worthy of discussion than the obvious effect this war is going to have on recruitment of low houred pilots. However, you are the boss in this situation and assuming there are no more comments relating to this I will refrain from posting again on this topic in this thread.

[Artificial Horizon]

I don't think that his war will have as much impact as people think that it will. Firstly, with the last gulf war, Iraq was producing large amounts of oil. This meant that when Sadam lit all of the wells on fire oil prices around the world went through the roof, if this wasn't bad enoungh for the airlines the passengers stopped flying because of the terrorist threats.

This time around the world is entirely different, Iraq no longer produces any of the worlds oil as the UN sanctions do not allow it, so although the destabilisation in the region may lead to some higher prices it will be no where as much as last time. Also after september 11 the airlines are already at the bottom of the trough so there will not be as effected as last time when they were all enjoing good times. Lets not forget as well that passengers now live with the fear of terrorism permenantly thanks to Bin Laden, so I feel there will not be such a big drop in passenger numbers as before.

As stated before, it will be better for all concerned if the conflict is swift or even better doesn't happen at all (this is very unlikley). Airlines will not hire new crews whilst the conflict runs, but they will not be making anyone redundant as they are already lean after the 9/11 attacks. Once conflict is over recruiting will start fairly quickly.

[Stu Bigzorst]

What is needed here is a nice balanced post from 411A:

411A's post (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=728104#post728975)

You may want to read my reply just 2 posts below.

Stu