ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the specific events that have regularly dragged the airline business into crisis. The airline industry is particularly vulnerable to the swings and roundabouts of the global economic system. Political upheavals, terrorist activity, wars or outbreaks of disease can snap at the heels of airline profits at any time. The air transport revolution, which so radically altered everyone's lives in the last century, is apparently not deemed significant enough to be included. Ironically, demand for air travel was hardly affected, although the effect was somewhat masked as the United States was experiencing the first flush of the effects of deregulation at that time. The fact that the ensuing problems in the airline industry can be traced to Black Monday suggests that the cause of the Dow Jones collapse warrants attention. The airline business can be characterised as a balancing act between fickle and volatile demand on one hand, and a production process that carries high cost.
