ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the difficulties of forecasting in order to better understand the components of the financial losses of airlines it is important to be able to forecast the future developments of the relevant variables. There are many factors which help us select the proper forecasting methodology. The first is the relevance and availability of historical data. A second case example could be forecasting air taxi services with the introduction of the new very light jet (VLJ) airplanes that are very inexpensive but fairly uncomfortable. The first basic type of forecast can be put under the heading of qualitative techniques. These techniques are best for short-term forecasting tasks and for picking up seasonality factors. It is very difficult to argue with people whose personal livelihood is strongly affected by the forecast. Forecasting costs, especially in the long term, is the most difficult of exercises.
