Earlier this week, I didn't give too much weight to this rumour in the UA forum about the imminent resignation of UA CEO James Goodwin followed by significant cuts in the airline's capacity and employees (among them, replacng 20-25 744s with 777s).

However, we are now hearing of 20% scheduled cuts with 12,000 layoffs at CO and just today that NW is doing the same capacitywise fully effective 1 October.

Other countries suffer the same problem. Ansett, the 2nd ranked Australian airline was allowed to collapse by its parent Air New Zealand. Sabena could be the next to fail, and Aerolineas Argentinas will probably never fly again.

Who will be next? Where will the global airline industry be by next year?