Really does anyone believe that the airlines have lost over $1B over the valcano?

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Really they may have lost that much revenue but not PROFITS since they don't have the expense of burning the fuel, paying crews to fly the planes, maintenance from flying those extra hours.

Now they do have the fix costs of leasing the airplanes and paying for the gates that are not being used.

One plus is that their maintenance people had plenty of time to get caught up on doing minor repairs on the grounded units.

Also talking about all the $ that the businesses and countries lost, they still have people stuck in their countries and they have to eat something. Now they may not be staying in a nice hotel and sleeping at the airport (after the first day I would have found a room somewhere) but they are still consuming things in the country that they are stuck in. Really if you were stuck in London would you just camp at the airport or go out and take advantage of the situation?

Also heard that prices for train tickets are going through the roof!

[Jeff_Green]

Cruises are booked up for a couple weeks, from what I hear.

As for losing money... I believe it. Sure they don't have the expense of flying but they do have the expense of all the other employees they have to pay while bringing in ZERO dollars in return, plus the cost of planes, terminals, etc.

[texxter]

Really they may have lost that much revenue but not PROFITS

The airline industry as a whole seems to be barely profitable.

[TxLerman]

Originally Posted by Jeff_Green

Cruises are booked up for a couple weeks, from what I hear.

As for losing money... I believe it. Sure they don't have the expense of flying but they do have the expense of all the other employees they have to pay while bringing in ZERO dollars in return, plus the cost of planes, terminals, etc.

The real issue is not lost revenues, but lost profits. The largest operating expenses airlines have is fuel and labor. The largest non-operating expense the airlines have is servicing their debt. Grounded planes don't burn fuel and flights crews are not paid when grounded. Generally pilots and flight attendents are only paid from wheels up to wheels down, plus tarmac time. They are not paid when sitting at the gate. There is no doubt that losing a week's worth of operations will impact them, but it should not take them years to recover considering that the lost week did not occur during a busy holiday season. Also, many airlines carry business interruption insurance, so they have a means to mitigate their losses.

I can't help but wonder if the ruckus the airlines raised is more of a ploy to have Eurocontrol (the European FAA) open the skies quicker. One safety expert I saw on the news said plainly, you don't want to be the first airline to have an ash-related accident because you started flying sooner than later. However, the costs of a single accident may be less than the loss of an entire day's flights.

Food for thought.

[Hanky]

Wow, yes they are losing money. Is this a big buisness is the enemy rant?

[dmora]

Originally Posted by texxter

The airline industry as a whole seems to be barely profitable.

Richard Branson was quoted once as saying "how do you make a million dollars? Lose a billion investing in an airline."

The quote might be slightly butchered but the context is there.

[CaptainTom]

Originally Posted by dmora

Richard Branson was quoted once as saying "how do you make a million dollars? Lose a billion investing in an airline."

The quote might be slightly butchered but the context is there.

What's the quickest way to become a millionaire? Invest a billion dollars in an airline !

[dmora]

Originally Posted by CaptainTom

What's the quickest way to become a millionaire? Invest a billion dollars in an airline !

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

No, this rant is about NEWS Reporters taking certain statements from so called "experts" (aka airline puppets) as FACTS and not questioning them at all as to their authenticity.

I will admit that they are or did loose money but no where the amount being bandied about, heard today that several airlines in Europe are asking countries there to pony up some euros to help them out of this losing situation.

What would happen if the second larger volcano that is tied in with the smaller one decides to blow and spew 10 times more debris into the skies?

Now some of the people who did lose money are the people who ship highly perishable goods in the bellies of passenger jets or in freight jets that were unable to get their goods out of Europe (but really how many of those are there other than in Holland?(cut flowers) since most of that traffic was going to Europe to that market so those people just should stop shipping and cutting or processing the goods for a couple days).

Like mentioned above the airlines were not burning fuel, had most of their crew costs stopped-that includes baggage handlers and tarmac workers to some extent- and now they are running all of their flights pretty much SW Airlines CattleCar style-FULL TO THE MAX- (btw SW reported a slight profit today) so those flights are even more profitable than ones running at 80% or less capacity.