The growth potential of air transport has been realised since the late 1960s /early 1970s when, in the UK, imaginative marketing by tour operators caused a boom in bookings for inclusive tour holidays and scheduled airlines operating across the Atlantic in this period introduced the first of an eventual flood of discount fares. However, far from the expected revenue boom, the eventual reductions in average yield caused by the inflow of ‘new’ passengers and the unexpected cross-over of full fare paying passengers started these airlines on the road to an eventual $2.5 billion loss over a seven year period. An unfortunately timed fuel crisis also added to the difficulties.

Now is the time of reckoning: airlines seem to be moving to a three class service (on the North Atlantic at least), similar to that operated in old steamship lines, in an attempt to maintain revenues from full fare passengers and at the same time encourage ‘discount’ travel.