Originally Posted by
bseller
My travel is almost exclusively personal, and yes - the economy has impacted the amount I might otherwise have booked.
Most of that, however, is owing to the increase in fares rather than a decrease in confidence.
The capacity controls the industry has implemented will result in significantly lower leisure travel, IMO, while increasing margins as well.
Dave
Well, fares might come down a bit because fuel prices are tanking -- oil is down almost $60/barrel since July!
If you follow the business end, airline stocks are interesting here. They "crashed" earlier this year when oil went into the $140s, and folks thought it would go up forever. The airlines responded by dramatically cutting seats -- particularly domestic U.S. seats -- so they could boost prices but cutting supply. Well, now they can pay the fuel bill, but the question is whether they'll have any customers.
My guess is that if we don't have only a modest recession, the airlines will do quite well. They obviously won't if this is the start of a 1929-style depression (which seems unlikely to me, but there's great panic on Wall Street).