Fuel Crisis Affecting Everyone – Including Airlines
July 17th, 2008Even the biggest airlines are not immune to the fuel crisis. The fuel crisis is hitting average, every day drivers. It is creating problems for the trucking industry. Then there are the problems caused by those problems. Transportation is costing more. Food is costing more. Life, in general, is costing more – a lot more.
Things have gotten so expensive with the fuel crisis that people can’t get to work. Vacations are being cancelled because people can’t afford the gas and really can’t afford the plane tickets. In London, bus lines are being deleted. CNN and MSNBC have even reported that the price of beer is going up, no doubt due to the cost of fuel. Countries that have rarely had issues in the past two or more decades are talking about rationing fuel.
There is talk of drilling everywhere – onshore (all of the shores), off shore and in states from Utah to Alaska to Montana. Then there are the oil reserves, which Congress keeps asking about using to get prices down at least a little. This has become a real political situation as well as and economic and environmental one.
The latest issue is the airlines. We know that there are huge fuel costs to fly planes. The airlines are now reacting to the crunch. They have already started charging for luggage and doing other things to offset their costs by charging passengers, but now the biggest airline in the United States is taking a huge step by creating a furlough for 200 or more pilots beginning in October. Other airlines have greatly reduced the amount of backup fuel that they are carrying to save costs. The problem with this tactic is that many say it puts passengers in danger.
The fuel crisis has affected every part of the economy, airlines included. With the circumstances continuing to get more difficult, even affecting the largest airlines, we will all be watching continuously to see where this crisis hits next.
Tags: economy, fuel crisis, fuel crisis and airlines, oil drilling