20 July 2008

How Bad Could It Get? A Look At History

Disclaimer - I am not trying to breathe doom and gloom into everyone but I was looking for some historical perspective on recessions in the last century. I came across some interesting statistics from the CAA (UK's Civil Aviation Authority - regulator). They have a great statistic set from their library. It showed total passengers (in those days by ship) from UK to US by class of service.

It shows that traffic feel from a peak in 1929 to less than half four years later. Although American gross domestic product recovered to 1929 levels by 1936, the UK-US route did not, and only after the Second World War did passenger numbers recover and exceed those of the late 1920s.Interestingly enough the make up of passengers from the premium classes to the economy classes changed dramatically and stayed changed.

The original image can be seen at their website, the quality is poor for a scan so try and look at its original here:
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/80/20080623%20Aviation%20Trends%20-%20Q1%202008.pdf

Just a little food for thought.

Cheers

Timothy

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