13 May 2008

Yes Virginia there is a recession

Sssshhhh don’t tell George but there is a Recession on and its going to affect the airline travel and tourism industry in the USA.

The impact and depth of the downturn has surprised many. For eCommerce there have been a number of studies on how it affects the market. Frankly we have no real indicators to help us understand. So we will have to wait a little longer until we have seen the hard numbers from multiple sources. Still its not pretty. There will be blood – much more blood, yet to come in the market. Weak airlines as we have written before have several more factors against them, The price of fuel is the obvious one that will drive up the cost of doing business. What is interesting this time round is that the ability to weather the storm in the safety of Chapter 11 is vastly diminished.

So to all those commentators and pundits who say the worst is behind us – I say PHOWEE. This recession will be deeper and longer. The recovery will be slower. The silver lining? This time transformation is inevitable. If you don’t transform the model you will be crushed.

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