Who’ll be flying next year?

Gatwick’s South Terminal turns 50 today, and as I’m watching the local news team reporting live from Gatwick, I can’t help but wonder just how big an impact the rising oil prices and the economic slowdown will have on the airline industry.

Inevitably travellers will have to get used to higher ticket prices, as airlines, one by one, are increasing fuel surcharges, and baggage check-in fees are being introduced en masse.

Will higher ticket prices alone put travellers off flying? Your guess is as good as mine, but when you add higher food, petrol and energy prices to the equation I would expect many travellers to be forced to cut back on flights.

The number of airlines will no doubt also be diminishing. When I landed at Gatwick last week, we taxied past a number of planes of airlines that I don’t think will be in business this time next year, including perhaps the airline I was using.

I was sad to see Silverjet cease operations, simply because they were flying in the face of the budget airline trend that put me off flying. But Silverjet is not alone, 24 airlines have ceased operations or gone bankrupt in the past six months, announced IATA Director General and CEO Giovanni Bisignani in a blood-and-thunder speech last week.

There’s a fine line between a wake-up call and scaremongering, the latter has brought the UK house market to a screeching halt at present. However, as the local news team is boasting to be the first news team ever to broadcast live on the tarmac airside at Gatwick, I quietly wonder just who will be flying from the half-century old terminal this time next year?

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