Air travel, air trouble

摘要

The world's airlines are flying into two sorts of turbulence at once. In the first may lie part of the solution to the second. The cause of the first is the global economic slowdown: in May, air travel fell in the United States and Europe for the first time in a decade. Having been borne aloft on the boom years, airlines will be hurt when times get bad. The second problem is a human one. The airlines' global alliances have led their pilots to expect global pay-harmonised at America's generous levels. It will be bad labour relations that delays passengers most in the coming months.