Fuel crisis is the Airline industry going into a massive downturn, with fuel prices hitting record highs will this be worse than 9/11 or are Airlines just panicking?….here are some of the key stories coming from the Airlines.

Announces plans to cut its domestic and international capacity by 9.5 percent by the end of the year. The airline also plans to ground 14 Boeing 757 and Airbus A319 aircraft, as well around 30 of its aging DC-9s.

Trims staff by 8% -- about 2,500 in all -- will affect all Northwest employee groups, the carrier said. Northwest has about 31,000 employees worldwide.

"Starting in September, CO will reduce capacity from its hubs, resulting in an 11 percent decline of domestic mainline capacity CO will eliminate 3,000 positions across all work groups, including management positions.

Announced that it is laying off 950 United Airlines pilots, or about 14% of the company's total pilot workforce, to better align capacity to shrinking demand in the face of soaring fuel costs. United said that it was cutting up to 1,600 jobs and removing 100 planes from its fleet to better cope with its whopping $3 billion fuel bill and a slower economy.

American Airlines (Fort Worth) could be eliminating more than 6,800 jobs later this year as the carrier struggles to survive record fuel costs. AMR Corporation, the parent of American Airlines and regional carrier American Eagle, said that it will cut domestic service 11-12% by the fourth quarter, which becomes a system wide reduction of 8% when including international flights. In a memo to all employees, AMR said the employment reduction will be commensurate with the capacity cuts. AMR has about 85,500 employees, which means an 8% decrease would be about 6,850 workers.

From November, Air Berlin will trim its fleet by 10 percent, cut long-distance services by nearly one-third and return 14 leased planes to their owners. The airline will also reduce administrative services at dba, another budget airline it owns, in southern Munich and lay off 52 workers.

Air Canada announced today that it will cut its capacity by 7% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and slash 2,000 jobs. The airline said in a statement: ‘The reduction in flying will require fewer employees to operate the airline. This will result in a decrease in staff levels of up to 2000 positions across all levels of the organisation.' Air Canada will lay off 632 flight attendants, representing 9 percent of its in-flight staff, as part of a round of cuts

May passenger figures and nose-diving load factors have prompted Finnair to announce that it will cut 500 staff.

In what the airline’s chief executive officer Jukka Hieonen described as a ‘disastrous’ month, with a 62.4% load factor - down 8 percentage points, May saw the board negotiating with unions on how to rationalise the losses.

The soaring cost of fuel has prompted Qantas to ground some of its domestic flights from July and rethink its international schedule. The carrier plans to retire one B737 aircraft, ground two B767 aircraft and one Jetstar A320 aircraft, cancel the delivery of one Jetstar A321 aircraft, accelerate the retirement of its four B747-300 aircraft, currently operating trans-continental services to Perth, by December and adjust the flying patterns of other aircraft, including reducing the use of the B747-400 fleet.

Citing extremely high jet fuel costs, Scenic Airlines this week petitioned the U.S. DOT to terminate scheduled air service at all three of its current EAS communities: Merced,CA; Visalia, CA; and Ely, NV. In its termination notice at Merced

Express Jet Airlines said on Tuesday it would suspend branded commercial operations as of September 2, blaming high fuel costs.

Denver-based Frontier, one of the leading US regional carriers, went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April as the price of fuel surged and its credit card processor said it would withhold more proceeds from ticket sales. Because Frontier employs approximately 6,000 people, this could mean that 1,000 of their workers will be out of a job.

Air Canada Jazz will be cutting 270 employees as the regional airline reduces capacity by 5%. Jazz commented on Thursday that in addition to soaring fuel prices, Canadian airlines also must contend with federal and provincial fuel excise taxes, security fees, and expensive airport charges. The cuts that were announced today follow the mid-June move by Air Canada (Montreal) to cut 2,000 jobs as it reduces its capacity by 7%.

Midwest Airlines hurt by high fuel costs, plans to ground 12 of its McDonnell Douglas MD-80 jetliners that provide charter service as well as regular passenger service to leisure destinations.

Gemini Air Cargo recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The airline owns a fleet of DC-10 and MD-11 freighters, has been struggling with rising debts caused, primarily, by rising fuel costs.

Virgin Blue will go bankrupt unless it can dramatically raise airfares, if fuel prices remain at current levels into the longer term, warns financial giant JPMorgan. Days after the broker UBS warned that the airline could need a cash injection from its shareholders in 2009-10, if jet fuel prices fail to retreat, JPMorgan said a capital raising drive would be "pointless" and would fail to keep the airline solvent.

Spirit Airlines may be laying off or displacing as many as 60% of its flight attendants and 45% of its pilots in two months, according to news reports. The low-cost airline, which is struggling to cope with rising jet-fuel prices.The carrier stated that it would furlough or displace up to 448 flight attendants and 242 pilots on August 1