The Oil Drum

The first post on this series on the future of air travel¹ looked at the fuel economy of the aircraft fleets in service with QANTAS and Virgin Blue on fuel economy and fuel economy per passenger perspective. Not surprisingly, the smaller aircraft were more economical than the larger aircraft, however the larger aircraft, in general, were more economical on a per passenger basis. Thank you for all those who commented on the previous post and the information that you provided.

This post gets to the crux of the matter. Profit and loss! No business can survive on sustained losses; sooner or later it will become insolvent. This post will investigate how long Australia’s two largest airlines, QANTAS and Virgin Blue can remain profitable in the era of high oil prices.