San Diego Housing Bubble News and Analysis

They're blaming it on failed FAA inspections. Who knows what the real cause is. I wouldn't hold it past them to ground the flights due to the high cost of fuel while blaming it on inspections.

Look at fuel prices. Then look at ticket prices. How much does it cost to drive 500 miles; and then to fly it? The competition is fierce and consumers decided years ago that meals and legroom meant nothing- price was everything. Tonight it was announced that Delta and Northwest will merge. Consolidation and the raising of ticket prices will occur. Unfortunately it is required to regain a healthy industry. I was in the industry but not now. Look for large amounts of layoffs in the coming years.

Aloha was hurting for a while. GO airlines really ate their lunch in interisland travel.
ATA I have no idea, but I am guessing they couldnt stand the gas.
Frontier Airlines is using bankruptcy to renegociate with lenders and credit card companies, they say they will come out just fine. We will see.
Everybody else is just too small to stand the heat of gas and competion. There was an article today about how some are speculating that we will emerge with 3-4 superairlines instead of 7 large airlines and a whole bunch of little upstarts.

Expect alot of layoffs in the next few years, and I wouldnt be suprised to see some of the pensions get offloaded to the Gov if they havnt already. It is fly cheap or die and labor is still the biggest single expense of the airline industry. That being said, Southwest isnt much of a bargin anymore. I use to fly them alot cause they were cheap. Now, I can usually fly some big name carrier instead at equal or cheaper price.

We just returned this morning from Oahu. There was a Mother of two with her husband stranded from Bad ATA tickets and the airline was paying for them to stay an extra 5 days. That doesn't sound to bad to me? Hawaiian airlines was asking people to give up ticket for stranded flyers to get home...I think Hawaiian and others are over booked and putting alot of stress on their employees!

Your basic airline ticket's price is 40% fuel cost. The biggest reason stated was fuel prices. At least with three of them. Should be interesting to see what it is like when oil is $200 and $300. Get your travel in while it's cheap folks because it's only going up.

Looks like Airlines will be the 1st victim of Peak Oil. Though as many of you stated is not a big issue.

This was not about oil. It was about airlines managements doing nothing for 18 months to comply with FAA regulations on maintenance. They got scared after Southwest got fined by FAA.

More than oil, it has to do with incompetence and lack of responsibility towards shareholders.

HUH? no, the bankruptcies had everything to do with oil. If I remember right, Southwests fuel bill doubled last year. It is offly hard to survive when your second biggest input doubled, but competion says you cant raise fares.
The disruptions to travel were caused by the FAA freaking out on American and a few other airlines for much to do about nothing. That was politics and retarded government oversight but it didnt put anyone outa buisness, yet. The weakest airlines will go first, and the rest will merge to reduce competion and raise fares. Dont be suprised when American blames their miserable numbers this quarter on the gov though.

American is already blaming the government if you read arpey's rants.
Airlines with decent management that can read, write and think will HAVE to account for a scenario where the cost of fuel increases. Rising cost of fuel is not an unexpected event anymore and somebody as dumb as I am would have mentioned that even 4 years ago. Rising fuel prices affect all other airlines too. Then how come they are showing profits? Southwest, if I remember right was the first one to get into hedging business in fuel. International airlines copied this method and perfected it further.

Here are some dumb questions from a dumb renter about airline business:
(1) How is Southwest surviving by raising their ticket prices? Even I noticed that their fares are more expensive than a year ago.
(2) How is it that international carriers make money on the pacific routes and fill their seats while United and American go empty? How is it that these routes are considered lucrative by international airlines, but no so by US based carriers? They all pay for their fuel in open market, don't they?

Maybe these asian airlines fill their planes because they provide "service"? A quick check shows that they are actually more expensive to fly pacific routes than either United or American.

There are two separate issues being discussed here:

1. Several airlines have recently tanked due to rising fuel costs, industry competition, etc. Others may be coming down the pike this year. This is nothing new in the airline industry, but will certainly be prevalent as the cost of fuel isn't going to decrease anytime soon.

2. American Airlines (among others) canceled a bunch of flights due to overdue inspections on certain aircraft. This doesn't have anything to do with oil prices. When Southwest was fined, other airlines had to sit up and take steps to avoid the same thing happening to them.

I can't answer your other questions, dumbrenter, but I am seeing from your posts and those of others that people are discussing two separate and not necessarily related issues.