Thats as good a summary as you're ever going to read on this topic at this time. Thanks for that.

I don't KNOW how bad things will be and I'm perfectly open to debate here as a means of enlightening both me and any wannabes who care to read it. Dissent is always welcome.

Staying solvent and flexible in the pursuit of your dream is really what this whole topic is about.

Of course. As I expect this to be the collapse of a 60 year super cycle of debt that will result in a Western Depression, then naturally, we'll have plenty of time to discuss it further in the future IF the lights stay on. For now I'm busy burying my gold in my land with my shotgun handy and my cellar stocked with beans :E :uhoh: !!

Good luck,

WWW


ps Nice to see you here Scroggs :)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5a319f02-3...0779fd2ac.html

United Airlines to cut a fifth of its fleet

NEW YORK, June 4 - UAL Corp, parent of United Airlines, said on Wednesday said it would slash its domestic capacity by 14 per cent in the fourth quarter, remove 100 planes from its fleet and cut up to 1,600 jobs as it grapples with soaring fuel costs and a weakening US economy.

The moves, which extend previous plans to cut staff and phase out old planes, represent about a 3 per cent reduction of United’s staff of 55,000 and a reduction of about 22 per cent of its 460-plane fleet.

The company plans to remove 100 aircraft from its mainline fleet, including the 30 previously announced Boeing 737s. UAL said it expects to retire all of its 94 single-aisle Boeing 737s if it can reach a deal with lessors. UAL also will retire six Boeing 747 jumbos.

Over the 2008 and 2009 period, UAL will reduce its mainline domestic capacity between 17 per cent and 18 per cent, and consolidated capacity -- which includes regional flying -- between 9 per cent and 10 per cent.

United, the No. 2 US airline, has been battered along with the rest of the industry by soaring fuel prices. UAL lost $537m in the first quarter and has been in merger talks with rivals in an effort to offset its fuel bill. UAL recently ended merger talks with US Airways Group, saying it would not seek a merger now.

”With fuel at historically high levels, United and our competitors need to redefine ourselves in this marketplace. The answers are not easy, yet this environment demands that we and the industry act decisively and responsibly,” UAL Chief Executive Glenn Tilton said in a message to employees.


They said that the House Price Crash that happened in the USA last year would never happen in the UK.... :eek:


WWW

Hey WWW.

You are very late to catch the news. ;) (see my previous post)

70 acft grounded means approx. 6 million tons of oil per day that become available. That is just enough to fulfill the needs for over 1 million households every single day...

Then you wonder why oil has dropped 8 consecutive days to 122$ and will drop further to below 120$ as I predicted lately (though happening 2 weeks later than predicted).

If you really want to help these guys, then why don't you try opening a flight school with reasonable prices and help these people get there at reasonable cost. :ok:
Believe me, that alternative takes more than daily copy-paste articles posted on a tiny thread on the internet, as I'm experiencing evry single day, but it is effective.
Your posts will not stop anyone heading towards training no matter if modular or integrated, they'll just make them feel unsecure.

So if you want to help these people for real, why don't you start by compromising your own comforts? I am compromising my career and a huge investment as a shareholder and still coming on this thread once a day to say that one shall not be scared of the "downturn", keeping people motivated and concentrated with what they're doing, no matter where they train or how they train.

You are not compromising anything for these folks, and you are giving everyone a very bad feeling. Student pilots are not stupid, they can read the newspapers, they can watch the TV and they understand more or less what is going on, no need to tell them.

And what about posting some articles containing the good news?

Like this one: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...s-options.html

or this one:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080604/oil_prices.html


It's not the best times for aviation, but it is not as bad as some here pretend they "know it" to be "from experience". Experience as what? First officer for a LCC?

ps:
Rumours say that Easyjet will cut capacity at its UK bases and send crews to their other bases on mainland Europe due to the UK market doing bad. Ryanair also recently said that they will compete more agressively against Easy, their greatest competitor on the LCC market. Rumours also say that Easy will ground up to 70 aircraft this winter and that they will record losses due to the high fuel. Easy might go down forever.

You love to read that don't you? Or maybe not because it might impact your own pocket :ugh:

Let's stop being selfish.

The problem of the big hole in emerging market airlines' recruitment plans of experienced pilots, solved in one fell swoop - any pilots released will be going directly to China, India or the UAE.

If you think these 737s are going to another airline, think again. They will be parked in the desert for the time being.

Might not even have to move. Look at how airlines like Air India and Korean have been taking on expat contractors with European bases. Emirates might one day wake up and realise that very few people want to actually live in the sandpit.

Ryanair predicts oil price will hit rivals
 

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle4061320.ece

World's airlines say they face $2.3bn loss this year as oil price stays high
 

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle4053861.ece


edited by me to remove the bulk of the quotation - the link is there for people to follow. WWW

Oil dips to $121 as reserves grow
Its easy to find positive stories as well as depressing ones.

V2

v2 please can you post the link to the said story or are you making things up :confused:

:p

Yes - and any positive news is welcome here as well as negative. I don't think oil in the range $100 - $135 could ever be classed as positive for the airlines mind.

It will come down - no doubt. As the Fed runs the printing press up to full power they bake inflation into the cake. As the worlds reserve currency the response by global money was always going to be to invest in alternative currencies and alternative assets. Hence the Euro and Gold and Oil and Wheat all skyrocketing. They are immune to dollar depreciation. If you are a Sheik and you have a gazzillion Dollars in the bank and sell you principle goods in dollars (oil) then the plummeting Dollar was an expensive headache that they were always going to do something to relieve.

Next up is a 20% (nominal) 35% (real terms) house price crash in the UK followed by a recession similar to the one that FOLLOWED the last HPC.

Whether we lose a similar amount of airline capacity is something I'm not so sure of.

WWW

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7436492.stm

Im sure oil in the range $80-$100 wasn't a positive for the airlines when it first happened. Be bloody good now though wouldnt it? I think the point is that its all relevant and the doomsday scenarios many are speculating on recently are based on oil staying at, or increasing past, the $130 mark.

V2

http://images.salon.com/comics/tomo/...tomo/story.jpg
In Jan 2007, oil was $56.

UK home prices 'fell 2.4% in May'
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7437132.stm

Continental Will Ground 67 Jets, Eliminate 3,000 Jobs
 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...y_M&refer=home

Yes - I particularly liked this line on the article on the Beeb: - says a lot about the company!

As in the post 9/11 period, US carriers are more vulnerable than their European or Asian counterparts. One obvious reason is that oil (and aviation fuel) is traded in their native currency, which is weak, so there's no exchange-rate factor to help them. More significant is that many US carriers are only just out of Chapter 11 protection, and haven't had time to consolidate the costs they've been protected from for some years. This is a real jump in the deep end for them, and it's not fun. They are also unlikely to be allowed to re-enter Chapter 11 protection so soon after coming out of it, so, if they want to survive, they've got to join the rest of the world in taking it on the chin. They will therefore over- rather than under-react.

Capacity reductions in the US are likely to be around 20 - 25%% this year, it would appear at the moment. Capacity reductions in Europe will be less - but they will be significant. UK, as ever, will follow most closely the USA, but I don't expect to see reductions much greater than 10 - 15% across the market. That still means a very big effect on jobs, which is what most of you are interested in. My advice stands!

House prices and so on are WWW's pet subject, and I'm sure he'll have more apocalyptic predictions for your entertainment shortly! However, I would like to point out that the drop in house prices in May has been recorded in one of the lowest-volume trading months on record, and thus is less reliable as a base from which to extrapolate. Part of the problem is that the transactions which completed in May were negotiated when mortgage funding was at its most difficult to obtain, which had both a slowing effect on the market, and a downward effect on prices. While things aren't exactly rosy now(!), mortgage companies have resumed offering me 'Deals I Can't Refuse (TM)' and Egg have started circulating offers of 0% balance transfers to their cards again. That suggests to me that competition is creeping back in and now the banks want to protect, rather than reduce, their market share. That doesn't mean we're out of the woods by any means, but it does suggest that the credit crunch part of the crisis is easing. If money can start to flow again, and real (as opposed to Central Bank) interest rates start to reduce, the landing is likely to be softer than many fear.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not for one minute suggesting times aren't going to be extremely tough for our industry over the next year or two. They will be more than tough. Oil prices will remain high enough to cap demand in all sorts of energy consumers - not just airlines. The further economic effects of high energy prices in the wider market will have repercussions on the number of people wanting - and affording - to fly, so airlines will get doubly hit. Keep your umbrellas and your Plan B close by your side!

Being a soon to be fATPL a feel that I shall be absorbing a few years of sun....

Mykonos would be right up your street Rhys!:ok:

I agree with Scroggs. Apart from the house price crash data. From todays Times:


http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle4076212.ece


The emerging threat that the Bank may raise base rates this year will cause worries for families that are struggling with the rising cost of living and declining house prices. These sank by a further 2.4 per cent last month, extending losses that have left them down by 6.6 per cent since January, wiping £13,000 off the value of the average home.

House Prices have fallen twice as fast in the past five months as in the same period in 1992, during the most recent property crash, when they fell by only 3.3 per cent, based on Halifax figures. The decline in prices this year is the biggest five-month fall since records began in 1991. If the deterioration in house prices continues at its present pace, the value of a home will slump by more in six months this year than in the whole of 1992, when prices fell by a total of 7.2 per cent. Some economists forecast that prices could fall by up to 12 per cent this year, followed by further declines next year.

The threat that a brutal housing crash could be more severe if the Bank raised rates is certain to sound alarm bells at the Treasury.

Bradford & Bingley will aggravate the pain today, when the troubled lender increases rates on all of its home-loan products...


I am seeing city centre 2 bed apartments (luxury - natch!) going under the hammer with Allsops and the like for £110k when they sold for £235k early last year.

Its a total crash, faster, harder and deeper than the 1990s.

Thinking that small volumes makes the stats unreliable is dreaming. The real price drops will come in 6 months time when the unemployment figures have ticked up.


WWW

Air One signs $4.7bn Airbus order
 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e2da38e8-3...077b07658.html