The Year Ahead

January 21, 2025

OUT WITH the outdated. Because it occurred, 2024 closed on a bitter word, with two main crashes within the span of per week, capping what was, statistically, one of many deadliest years in a while.

Perhaps so, however how lethal, precisely? Examine final yr to lots of the years of the 1970’s and 1980’s, when a number of main crashes have been the norm. Out of the blue 2024 doesn’t look so unhealthy. Reality is, yr over yr, we’ve nowhere close to the variety of severe accidents we used to.

Simply the identical, it’s tempting to view 2024 as a correction, reasonably than an aberration. Maybe what was shocking wasn’t the spate of accidents, however reasonably how lengthy we’d gone with out such a spate. Perhaps we have been too fortunate for too lengthy.

There’s no telling what would possibly occur in 2025. If nothing else, let’s hope the U.S. majors keep their remarkable streak of disaster-free years, currently standing at 23.

Within the meantime, who’s subsequent in line for a pc crash? The “airline meltdown” has turn into a recurrent occasion — a revolving collection of tech-related fiascos. Each few months, it appears, issues at one of many large carriers go haywire for just a few days. Final summer time, Delta had its fifteen minutes of infamy. Extra not too long ago it was American. Is it United’s flip? Southwest? JetBlue?

Different predictions are simpler. The unrelenting tedium of TSA, as an example. No adjustments there. You’ve been standing in line for the previous twenty years, principally for no good cause. And also you’ll be standing once more.

Issues have gotten slightly higher with delays and cancellations, as airways have decreased their dependence on regional jets and rationalized their schedules. Considerably. However the skies stay overcrowded, and ATC stays understaffed and underfunded. So I don’t foresee a lot enchancment.

What else? Bankrupcties? Mergers? Will Spirit Airways cling in there, or will they disappear beneath Chapter 7 or a last-minute acquisition? How a couple of new black swan occasion, akin to the COVID shock of 2020?

Who is aware of. I don’t actually see any markers. Nothing feels possible. And perhaps that’s good. Maybe a boring 2025 is what we must always hope for.

Be at liberty to depart your individual prognostications within the feedback part.

 

Photograph courtesy of Unsplash