This year's theme for the Flight fronty cover competition is "The essence of thisdgreat industry". The essence this year is, I think, that fortunes are mixed, with growth in some areas and slowdown in others. I selected four images to reflect or symbolize developments in four areas: passenger airlines, business aviation, cargo carriers and the helicopter industry. Large intercontinental airlines in the west are confronted with mounting losses and dropping share prices. Budget carriers are still doing relatively well, but they are threatened by the prospect of a double dip in the economy and governmental budget cuts that will bite into the income of private individuals, who may postpone leisure activities, including holdidays. Even airlines in the eastern hemisphere, where growth has been huge, face a slowdown as demand from westerrn countries drops. This first image in my series shows the last passengers boarding a flight of budget carrier (budgie for short) Ryanair at Eindhoven airport in The Netherlands (EHEH) on 30 June 2011. The aircraft is Boeing 737-8AS c/n 33546/ln1269 EI-DAH.
Related images in this EnoAeroPics gallery:
See the whole "Mixed fortunes" series for the 2011 Flight front cover competition
See the whole Ryanair turnaround series
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See all EnoAeroPics images on Flightglobal/AirSpace here