Air travel – Apr 29

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Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage

Fuel costs could end cheap flight era
Dan Milmo, The Guardian
… Soaring fuel costs have put airlines under financial pressure which, analysts say, will inevitably be passed on to passengers through increased ticket prices, fuel surcharges and baggage check-in fees. The warnings follow a wave of airline bankruptcies in the UK and the US, and crippling oil price rises which have seen the cost of fuelling a transatlantic flight quadruple since 2000 to $44,000 (£22,100). The pressure on the airlines has been most acute this year as the global oil price rose from $80 a barrel to nearly $120.

Ryanair became the latest airline to pass that pain on to customers yesterday when it raised the cost of putting bags in the hold and checking in at airports. Passengers on Europe’s largest budget carrier will have to pay £16 a bag and £8 to use a check-in desk on return journeys from Monday.

Fuel accounts for a quarter of airline budgets and the resulting financial squeeze has triggered warnings that major carriers could go to the wall or be forced to merge with rivals to survive.
(28 April 2008)

Yes, It’s a Crisis
Ryan McGreal, Raise the Hammer
… Everyone seems shocked and dismayed about rising energy prices and the predictable effect that’s having on the affordability of everything else – including food, which under modern agriculture is utterly dependent on hydrocarbon inputs – but it doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying even cursory attention to the energy situation.

… The city of Hamilton even hired a consultant to prepare a report on peak oil, but then ignored its conclusions, neglected even to study its recommendations, and flat-out refused to reconsider its enonomic development plans in the face of growing evidence that oil-dependent industries have poor long-term prospects.

… planning long-term economic development around air transport is sheer lunacy.

To the extent that airlines will survive the next decade or two, they will do so through ruthless consolidating: a few very large planes owned by a few very large companies flying between major centres, and mostly transcontinental at that.

Hamilton will not have a prosperous future as an air transport hub. It’s that simple.
(28 April 2008)