Grab a seat. The music is stopping

[Eric Janson]

An indication of what is coming....

Lufthansa has cancelled up to 50% of its flights and has announced 23000 flights have been cancelled for April.

They are warning of further cancellations in the coming weeks.

https://simpleflying.com/lufthansa-apri ... -canceled/

[JohnnyHotRocks]

The industry is officially screwed...

https://www.foxnews.com/world/coronavir ... -countries

[digits_]

Perhaps this deserves its own thread but any bets on how fast the wages will drop at the companies who were paying 100g for king air pilots? The ones who were pre massive job growth were paying peanuts going back to it.
I suspect it won’t be too long, if their in boxes start to fill up with resumes

I don't think the wages will drop. There just won't be any raises for the next 10 years. Maybe other perks will disappear, like paying for medical fees, per diems etc. There might not be an excess of jobs anymore, but people might still shuffle around if the company pisses them off too much.

[CPT.HarshColdReality]

The music has stopped in the USA.

All flights from USA to Europe suspended. Ordered by the Commander in Chief himself.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/coronavir ... -1.5494748

[GhostRider6]

The industry is officially screwed...

https://www.foxnews.com/world/coronavir ... -countries

I think there’s a lot of catastrophizing going around. I do think this will be a minor bump in the road.

Give it a few months and I think things will be back to normal. I see no significant indicators that point to being concerned about our jobs in the long term.

[mixturerich]

The industry is officially screwed...

https://www.foxnews.com/world/coronavir ... -countries

I think there’s a lot of catastrophizing going around. I do think this will be a minor bump in the road.

Give it a few months and I think things will be back to normal. I see no significant indicators that point to being concerned about our jobs in the long term.

A few months? Wish I shared your optimism. As far as job security goes, it’s really going to come down to seniority.

[DirtyDashDriver]

The industry is officially screwed...

https://www.foxnews.com/world/coronavir ... -countries

I think there’s a lot of catastrophizing going around. I do think this will be a minor bump in the road.

Give it a few months and I think things will be back to normal. I see no significant indicators that point to being concerned about our jobs in the long term.

A few months? Wish I shared your optimism. As far as job security goes, it’s really going to come down to seniority.

Agreed. This is starting to have a post-9/11 feel to it and I'm glad to be on the other side of things - for now. Although I think the retirements will help ease things for those with positions up a list, the hiring freezes are already here and an airline does have to start considering its options if it's going to suspend 12% or more of its operations as was reported is being discussed at WestJet. I assume AC is probably going to be north of that given their international exposure. The better half and I are already talking contingencies in case Herr Trump decides too many Europeans are going over the Peace and Ambassador Bridges after landing in Toronto from next week. If you think things are bad now, wait until we can no longer fly into les Etats-Unis. If I were at the bottom of the list, I might start talking to the bank about a line of credit.

[Eric Janson]

I was waiting to board my flight home today (positioning) when my company called me to tell me to cancel check in and proceed back to the hotel. About 30 minutes after President Trumps announcement.

Looks like they are worried about not being able to send crew to relieve me.

Waiting for further instructions later today.

[JohnnyHotRocks]

https://www.foxnews.com/travel/jetblue- ... 9-11-worse

[AirDoan]

This whole thing has me spinning myself. Two low time jobs in, pipes and skydiving with a little more than 800 hours. Finished my IATRA and Group one a month ago, then proceeded to fire out resumes to all the places I have wanted to work long time. Even told the skydive job I'd bow out and let them hire a new low time person (that wasn't the only reason, I would have been able to survive in a town 3 hours away on the money offered without a loan) and I have references and referrals to a couple places. But now I'm scrambling. I was liking to chance of finding a job here in BC and student loans will kick in in April. Let the career life finally begin.

I have a lead flying floats in Ontario this summer from a friend who is the CP. It's a lifestyle I was try to avoid at this juncture as I spent the better part of 2 years away from my family already but I will be taking it as I have had nothing but crickets to any application to this point. It's bloody depressing!

[derateNO]

The rez will always need pop and chips.

[BleedAirValve]

This whole thing has me spinning myself. Two low time jobs in, pipes and skydiving with a little more than 800 hours. Finished my IATRA and Group one a month ago, then proceeded to fire out resumes to all the places I have wanted to work long time. Even told the skydive job I'd bow out and let them hire a new low time person (that wasn't the only reason, I would have been able to survive in a town 3 hours away on the money offered without a loan) and I have references and referrals to a couple places. But now I'm scrambling. I was liking to chance of finding a job here in BC and student loans will kick in in April. Let the career life finally begin.

I have a lead flying floats in Ontario this summer from a friend who is the CP. It's a lifestyle I was try to avoid at this juncture as I spent the better part of 2 years away from my family already but I will be taking it as I have had nothing but crickets to any application to this point. It's bloody depressing!

My friend - I truly feel for you - I honestly do. I think things with slow down for a little while but should bounce back in time. Find something for the next little while and see what happens. Above all - keep you head up and spirits high

[ayseven]

Unfortunately, this is part of the aviation world. Always has been. In fact, this boom was a blip. Hang in. Be positive, and go away if you have to. Use it to know you won't be missing much if you don't take it. Your family can come and visit. Time marches on anyways. Make use of it.

[digits_]

This whole thing has me spinning myself. Two low time jobs in, pipes and skydiving with a little more than 800 hours. Finished my IATRA and Group one a month ago, then proceeded to fire out resumes to all the places I have wanted to work long time. Even told the skydive job I'd bow out and let them hire a new low time person (that wasn't the only reason, I would have been able to survive in a town 3 hours away on the money offered without a loan) and I have references and referrals to a couple places. But now I'm scrambling. I was liking to chance of finding a job here in BC and student loans will kick in in April. Let the career life finally begin.

I have a lead flying floats in Ontario this summer from a friend who is the CP. It's a lifestyle I was try to avoid at this juncture as I spent the better part of 2 years away from my family already but I will be taking it as I have had nothing but crickets to any application to this point. It's bloody depressing!

I don't think you realize how lucky you are that float job will still be there...

[AirDoan]

This whole thing has me spinning myself. Two low time jobs in, pipes and skydiving with a little more than 800 hours. Finished my IATRA and Group one a month ago, then proceeded to fire out resumes to all the places I have wanted to work long time. Even told the skydive job I'd bow out and let them hire a new low time person (that wasn't the only reason, I would have been able to survive in a town 3 hours away on the money offered without a loan) and I have references and referrals to a couple places. But now I'm scrambling. I was liking to chance of finding a job here in BC and student loans will kick in in April. Let the career life finally begin.

I have a lead flying floats in Ontario this summer from a friend who is the CP. It's a lifestyle I was try to avoid at this juncture as I spent the better part of 2 years away from my family already but I will be taking it as I have had nothing but crickets to any application to this point. It's bloody depressing!

I don't think you realize how lucky you are that float job will still be there...

I actually do. I have nothing but gratitude to the guy for trying to help out and put me right into a plane (pending owner approval), not the dock for the season. I should have clarified that I was not in anyway bashing the float job. I got my float rating right after my CPL in 2016 hoping to go down that path to begin with! But this season I'll be hitting 40. I was hoping to start building seniority somewhere like Pasco this year and setting up for the long haul. Use my float rating for fun. But now I see it as the parachute I am very glad I have!

[GhostRider6]

This whole thing has me spinning myself. Two low time jobs in, pipes and skydiving with a little more than 800 hours. Finished my IATRA and Group one a month ago, then proceeded to fire out resumes to all the places I have wanted to work long time. Even told the skydive job I'd bow out and let them hire a new low time person (that wasn't the only reason, I would have been able to survive in a town 3 hours away on the money offered without a loan) and I have references and referrals to a couple places. But now I'm scrambling. I was liking to chance of finding a job here in BC and student loans will kick in in April. Let the career life finally begin.

I have a lead flying floats in Ontario this summer from a friend who is the CP. It's a lifestyle I was try to avoid at this juncture as I spent the better part of 2 years away from my family already but I will be taking it as I have had nothing but crickets to any application to this point. It's bloody depressing!

I don't think you realize how lucky you are that float job will still be there...

I actually do. I have nothing but gratitude to the guy for trying to help out and put me right into a plane (pending owner approval), not the dock for the season. I should have clarified that I was not in anyway bashing the float job. I got my float rating right after my CPL in 2016 hoping to go down that path to begin with! But this season I'll be hitting 40. I was hoping to start building seniority somewhere like Pasco this year and setting up for the long haul. Use my float rating for fun. But now I see it as the parachute I am very glad I have!

It’s a tough position for us all. I feel for you and I’ve been in your shoes more than once and with more time. The media isn’t helping either..

We’ve all seen these cycles come and go. Keep on building that resume. If you can and put yourself in the best position possible for the upswing that WILL eventually come that’s the best thing you can do.

Think of how to survive as well... if that float jobs allows for that give er .. if not look at other options.

[iflyforpie]

Man.

So much doom and gloom.

People trying to time the markets and worried about musical chairs is why we have these problems in the first place.

This whole industry was shut down by overhyped doom and gloomers who governments are trying to calm and appease with idiotic responses that look good but do nothing.

Look. People are always going to want to go places. This will blow over in a couple months, and we will see a return to the same new “normal” we’ve seen for the last 3-4 years.

I had a 20 day trip planned that I had to cancel, not because of the virus but because of the idiotic response of two governments who are or are threatening escalation of travel restrictions or are very vague on what they mean. But you don’t think I’m going to do it as soon as the dust settles? Not 5 years or 2 years or even a year from now. Lots of people are the same way. They’ll need a release after this.

Business has to continue. Sure some people might do e commuting and teleconferencing but it’s still basically a shuttle service between YYZ YUL YVR etc.

People still need physical connections and air travel is the only way to do it unless you want to take a three day one day late train service or drive across the country.

The pilot shortage is structural. It’s based on demographics of baby boomers retiring and millennials being uninterested in aviation. These same retirees from all walks of life are heavily invested in lifestyle and will want to travel as well.

This is not 9/11 with new wars and massive security measures. This is not 2008 with an excessively overvalued housing market with sub prime mortgages people can simply walk away from. We’re likely going to go into an era of lower energy prices as the big players make it on volume.. and the only place that’s going to have a negative effect on is Alberta and the portion of charter operations that run in and out of the patch while they aren’t movie sports teams or cadets or mine workers or fishermen.

This is more like 1987. A massive panicked sell off and likely a rebound and business as usual shortly after.

[rudder]

You are probably right. But that does not change the impact on air carriers of what is actually happening in bookings and loads.

Right now, the smartest guy in the room looks like Delta CEO Ed Bastian. He sees it for what it is: 3-6 months of grossly depressed passenger travel. And he does not want to burn through all of that cash waiting for the sun to reappear. Parking 300 aircraft. That is bold stuff. The rest of the CEO’s look either timid or confused by comparison.

There are operators that will not have the cash reserves to weather the storm. And others may have to change future plans due to dramatic change in cash reserves and working capital depending on the length of the depressed travel environment.

The carriers that will do best are those that were financially equipped for contingency and not just sunny skies with endless record profit.

[rookiepilot]

This is not 2008 with an excessively overvalued housing market with sub prime mortgages people can simply walk away from. We’re likely going to go into an era of lower energy prices as the big players make it on volume..

I'll take the other side of this paragraph. And I have.

[GoinVertical]

I think aviation can and will bounce back quickly if things blow over before the end of April...

The biggest issue I see right now though are people having to take unpaid leave either because their jobs are having them stay home (though they should be able to get EI) or worse, they have to stay home because daycares and schools are closed.

If this two week period gets extended, we are going to see a lot of people, especially those without a solid rainy-day fund, have a very hard time. Unless the government intervenes financially.

All those families who save up to have one vacation a year may not be able to afford it for the next year or two and that will effect leisure travel and vacation routes big-time.

I can also see Flair and Swoop having a hard time because of this... with their prices they need excellent load-factors, and that's not going to happen if people need to save their pennies to pay off debt incurred by this whole shit-show.

[GhostRider6]

I was a naysayer in the beginning of this and I’m starting to change my mind.

So much of our economy is based on trade of goods and services and consistent and increasing consumption of resources. Social interaction is also based on consumption.

People have over extended themselves, wages have not kept up with inflation and employees in general ( skilled/ unskilled) and consumers alike are grossly underemployed/ undervalued. There isn’t the same value that was once placed on employee and customer loyalty. Meanwhile, the fat cats at the top have concentrated wealth in an extreme way. Newsflash, the top 1% cannot consume enough to keep the economy going. It’s the frontline worker’s consumption of goods and services that makes things work.

It’s a fluid and extremely complex situation with a multitude of variables.

The virus’s spread is also contingent on social interaction this will directly impact consumption of resources and or social interaction and in turn commerce. ( aka the economy) People in the service sector depend on this social interaction. You can see where I’m going here..

Capitalism has led to an us/ against them mentality amongst workers. Instead of people being unified we have become atomized and more than willing to step on eachother to advance. CEO’s know this and capitalize on it.

I think there’s a multitude of ways this thing can play out.

Definitively, I can say so much of this is completely out of our control. We’ll be in the sh&@ with so many others if things go south.

[GhostRider6]

I also hope that this crisis is not justification for further underemployment which seemed to be the case in each previous downturns. -wages never caught up after austerity measures.

What did happen was the manufacturing of consent for reduced WAWCON for workers in the private sector and some of the public sector.

Why give bailouts to the oil industry yet cut healthcare workers pay etc?

[Trematode]

Man.

So much doom and gloom.

People trying to time the markets and worried about musical chairs is why we have these problems in the first place.

This whole industry was shut down by overhyped doom and gloomers who governments are trying to calm and appease with idiotic responses that look good but do nothing.

Look. People are always going to want to go places. This will blow over in a couple months, and we will see a return to the same new “normal” we’ve seen for the last 3-4 years.

I had a 20 day trip planned that I had to cancel, not because of the virus but because of the idiotic response of two governments who are or are threatening escalation of travel restrictions or are very vague on what they mean. But you don’t think I’m going to do it as soon as the dust settles? Not 5 years or 2 years or even a year from now. Lots of people are the same way. They’ll need a release after this.

Business has to continue. Sure some people might do e commuting and teleconferencing but it’s still basically a shuttle service between YYZ YUL YVR etc.

People still need physical connections and air travel is the only way to do it unless you want to take a three day one day late train service or drive across the country.

The pilot shortage is structural. It’s based on demographics of baby boomers retiring and millennials being uninterested in aviation. These same retirees from all walks of life are heavily invested in lifestyle and will want to travel as well.

This is not 9/11 with new wars and massive security measures. This is not 2008 with an excessively overvalued housing market with sub prime mortgages people can simply walk away from. We’re likely going to go into an era of lower energy prices as the big players make it on volume.. and the only place that’s going to have a negative effect on is Alberta and the portion of charter operations that run in and out of the patch while they aren’t movie sports teams or cadets or mine workers or fishermen.

This is more like 1987. A massive panicked sell off and likely a rebound and business as usual shortly after.

I completely disagree.

The problem, yet again, is that you are trying to compare this to events in recent memory that you have personal experience with (9/11, 2008). It's probably the single overriding problem that leaders are having in responding to this: Leaders make their decisions based on their previous experience and intuition.

The issue is that nobody was alive back in 1918, and the type of personalities that make it to the highest levels of decision making in our governments and institutions are by their nature slow to listen and respond to information that is contradictory to what they've personally experienced about the world. The disease prevention scientists have been warning us that something on this scale is just over the horizon for decades now. They know what's at stake because they're intimately familiar with the spread and the history of these kinds of pathogens -- but they're not leaders, and they lack the social influence to solidly convey the full impact of this crisis to the world population and its governments, as can be seen in the delayed responses of many countries like Italy and the US.

The last two decades have been especially troubling with regards to politicians no longer deferring to science with regards to heeding predictions about our futures based on hard evidence and research, and I think we'll end up paying the price for that throughout the course of this crisis.

I think it's going to last at least through summer, and probably till the end of the year. We will go through ebbs and flows of quarantines and flare-ups as each region around the world tries to put out the fires of this infection. Hopefully once all is said and done, we'll be able to eradicate the virus, but I don't think that's too likely based on what the experts are saying -- and it's very possible that we may be sitting here at the same time next year talking about COVID-21.

If it does end up being an ongoing thing, we will as a people adapt in our daily lives, but that's definitely going to have some pretty sad ramifications for air travel and our social lives in general.

[ehv8oar]

I can also see Flair and Swoop having a hard time because of this... with their prices they need excellent load-factors, and that's not going to happen if people need to save their pennies to pay off debt incurred by this whole shit-show.

I disagree, low cost carriers are the ones who are least impacted by events like this as people still want to travel but don't want to spend much money so book on the low cost carriers instead.

[Sharklasers]

I can also see Flair and Swoop having a hard time because of this... with their prices they need excellent load-factors, and that's not going to happen if people need to save their pennies to pay off debt incurred by this whole shit-show.

I disagree, low cost carriers are the ones who are least impacted by events like this as people still want to travel but don't want to spend much money so book on the low cost carriers instead.

Your right, that’s how canjet 1, roots, greyhound, jetsgo, Canada 3000, ect ect ect were able to weather 9/11, SARS and the recession so well.