If history or conventional wisdom is anything to go by, one of the industry's biggest bursts of acceleration should by the end of this year be running out of steam, and by 2010 firmly in reverse.
Enjoy the good times while they last might be the message. Since the 1970s, when the global economy started to truly open, the start of each decade has been characterised by a downturn in Western economies, from the oil crisis, through the painful medicine of Reaganomics, the first Gulf war wobbles and the nervy few years after the dot com crash and 9/11.
So why should the early 2010s be any different? The main reason is that the centre of economic gravity has changed. A rise in the oil price or jitters over terrorism, pandemics or regional conflict will continue to affect everybody - but in a different way to before when a cold caught by the dominant economic powers of Europe, North America and Japan would lead to global financial flu. A series of what would in the past have been catastrophic blows - US airline stagnation, a historically high oil price and turmoil in the Middle East - has been more than offset by the appetite for air travel in China, India, the Gulf and South-East Asia. Barring a cataclysm, this hunger will continue to fill orderbooks into next decade.
For years the dogma that bust must follow boom has been accepted almost as scientific law. That law might be about to be broken.
Source: Flight International
