Credit crunch, banking crisis, economic downturn - all spell hard times for most businesses. Airlines seem particularly vulnerable and some more so than others. Bruce Hales-Dutton finds out what goes wrong and why. Punters tired of trying to pick winning horses at racecourses can now have a flutter on something rather more exotic: the survival chances of airlines. The day after the XL Leisure Group collapsed, bookmaker Paddy Power was offering odds of 6-4 on Alitalia going into administration, with bmi at 40-1 and Virgin Atlantic and easyJet at 66-1. The longest odds were on Ryanair at 100-1. Distasteful? Possibly, but most forms of business involve risk. Indeed risk-taking lies at the heart of the capitalist system although airlines are generally seen as having a bigger than average chance of failure. Around 30 have gone bust in the last 12 months and with banks and even countries running out of money, further casualties seem likely.
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