Stuff: March 2008 Archives

Earthquakes, coups, disasters, bankruptcies. Have we no good news? In a word, NO. Or at least that’s what we told our friend Addison Schonland at IAG the other day for his latest podcast wrapping up the week. Our colleagues Runway Girl (Mary Kirby) and The Dewline (Steve Trimble) joined us with some more news, although Runway Girl did have some upbeat if minor news. But all in all it’s not a good time to be an airline. One carrier, Aloha, was forced into its second bankruptcy in three or four years by crazy fuel prices, while another, Skybus, is rejigging its routes as its fuel costs too go up. Then two of the biggest carriers, American and Delta, decided to ground some of their MD-80s to make sure that they had inspected them properly. This stranded thousands and made major headlines and more bad news for the industry. Left Field discusses the groundings (very) briefly here.