The aircraft gang

Hold your wallet! Lock up your bank manager! The aircraft gang is in town! The aircraft gang, a.k.a. Airbus and Boeing, is back with their self-serving, rosy predictions. According to Airbus, the world's aircraft fleet will double to 4,100 in the next twenty years. Asia Pacific will be stronger market: The Jakarta Post on April 16, 1997. And that's only Asia.

We heard that before. Last time the aircraft gang gazed into their crystal ball, in the mid-80s, a panic by the press followed, saying most planes were old with metal fatigue, and all that. Every airplane that skidded off a runway was screened according to its age. They publish even a ranking of fleets' age. On top of that, air travel was supposed to boom. Airlines scrambled to order new planes and the aircraft gang experienced a market boom.

By the early 90s, over 150 jets laid idly parked in the Mojave desert and red numbers poured across airlines' balance sheets. Brand-new Air Canada Jumbos flew straight from Boeing's factory in Seattle to the desert parking lot. Aircraft are parked in the desert because the dry air doesn't let them rust.

Now comes the predictions of fleets doubling again. The airlines that scramble to order new jets should not worry, there is a lot of free space in the Mojave desert.

OSVALDO COELHO

Bandung, West Java