Pilots Blog

'Tis the season to be jolly

Another year rolls past and it's also the end of a decade where we've seen the world's airline industry lose just under $50 billion. On the whole the noughties has not been the best decade for the aviation world and yet there are signs that things are picking up. Passenger numbers are up, even if margins are not, and the much anticipated Boeing 787 composite aircraft took to the skies just a couple of weeks ago.

The next decade promises to see significant changes to travel pattens around the world and we can expect to see larger, more efficient and quieter aircraft transport the huge populations of China and India into the skies as well as increasingly affluent Central and Eastern European and South American passengers. These emerging markets will help to revitalise the aviation industry and provide the best reason to be jolly as the year ends.

Heroes and villains - my hero of the year has got to be Chelsey B Sullenberger who landed US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River and all the passengers survived. Villain is probably Ryanair's Michael O'Leary although I have to confess to rather liking him, and particularly the way he ran rings round the BBC's Panorama team who'd been sent to do a hatchet job on him.

Have a very Merry Christmas and prosperous 2010.