I wonder how hotels are doing? I’m planning a trip soon. Normally I would stop. Due to gas prices though...I’ll leave earlier and drive longer to compensate for the extra money for gas.
Why don’t they raise fares?
You are correct. The Greens want to destroy the economy ... because it creates pollution.
Why do politicians listen to Greens, Gays, La Raza and other radical groups? Because they threaten to disrupt.
Eventually conservatives are going to have to get activated and began playing hardball with the politicians.
Look at John McCain. Other than on Iraq, he listen to the Leftish Radicals as well.
....but upon further cogitation on the subject, I would speculate that Southwest wouldn't touch AA with a 10 foot pole.
AA et. al. muckety mucks had the model of how to run an airline company right before their eyes for decades, and either didn't pay attention, or were too arrogant to realize that there were people who were smarter about running an airline company than themselves.
“Libs should be elated by this, considering they believe airplanes contribute to global warming, destroy the ozone, etc.”
The goal of whoever is deliberately orchestrating this is to get us all on elecricity alone, whether electric cars or mass transit. That way they can have complete control over us. All they have tdo to get our compliance is to threaten to throw the switch!
You just watch — the goobermint (aka taxpayers) will be bailing out one or more bankrupt airlines to the tune of bajillions of dollars.
I think we could end up seeing down the road one national airline, just like what they have in other countries.
Libs should be elated by this, considering they believe airplanes contribute to global warming, destroy the ozone, etc.
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At least the celebs will still have their private airplanes. I mean there has to be a silver lining here, right? Writing with sarcasm on high...
Hopefully another form of mass transit like railroads will be able to take up some of the slack, at least on domestic runs.
Coal to Oil is approved for the C-17 and the F-15 and F-16 if I am not mistaken.
To support our airpower and land transportation via the trucking industries, an immediate effort to get the trucking and airline industry and our air-power on this fuel source should be done, 100% domestic sourced.
It would probably clean out the short speculators big time and the price would drop in half so fast it would make your head spin.
But hey, nobody listens to me anyhow....
They don’t travel?
From the article:
“In better economic times, a gap in service left by the failure of one airline would be immediately be filled by another. With so many airlines struggling under the weight of escalating fuel costs, however, “You can no longer expect immediate backfill [of those flights],” Mr. Mitchell said.
As a result, airline service will be even less reliable, according to the study, and any conveniences afforded to business travelers would suffer. “
Without some kind of drastic action (akin to marching into Saudi Arabia and assuming control and pricing of production ourselves), I don’t see petroleum prices coming back down. If anything, they may continue to creep upwards.
Nor do I see the airline industry surviving in its present form. Commericial aircraft gobbles fuel at too high a rate for airlines to absorb the costs yet still be able to operate profitably under their current business model, which is to provide air transportation to the masses.
Until the 1960’s, air travel was prohibitively expensive for anyone other than business travelers with expense accounts, and the well-heeled. Most middle- and working-class folk didn’t fly, except in extraordinary circumstances.
That changed, ushered in by an era of cheap fuel and big planes. Remember “People Express”? I remember flying from Newark to Oakland for $88 back in 1980.
What I expect to see is the collapse of “air transportation for the masses” and a return to the model of the 1950’s: a much smaller core of commercial airlines, providing [compared to today] limited service to major cities at prices affordable only to the upper echelons or business travelers.
ASIDE:
This is why passenger railroading collapsed starting in the 1950’s - the costs of operating the service began to outrun the fares that could be charged that would attract sufficient ridership to keep the services running. It’s also why Amtrak continually operates at a loss - the costs of assembling, maintaining and operating a fleet of equipment, properly staffed, exceed the revenues that can be reasonably charged in order to attract ridership. Even in the heavily-traveled Northeast Corridor, passenger revenues alone cannot sustain the service.
The rising cost of fuel is going to do to the airlines, what the emergence of low-cost air transportation did to the railroads.
One thing seems certain - by 2015, commercial air travel will be much-changed from what it is today.
- John