Analyst Says Airlines Still Have More Seats Than Needed

Boyd: Further Cuts In Capacity Inevitable If you thought the capacity cuts announced by several major airlines for this quarter were deep, get ready for more. That's the opinion of aviation consultant Michael Boyd, who predicted Monday that US airline capacity on domestic routes decline further next year, and falling capacity could spur still more cuts. The Dallas Morning News reports that at his annual Boyd Group aviation conference, Boyd said this is not like previous industry cycles, and customer demand could fall faster than the airlines plans to cut seats. "This is not an aviation cycle. What this is, is a whole new environment," he told attendees. "We have grown up on oil prices being relatively low. They're going to be high. That means how you do business, where you do business is going to be different." He notes that... [read full story]