商业报道:航空业 苦日子来了

Airline Fuel Crisis

Newsweek's Dan Gross explains how record fuel costs are affecting passengers

Hi everybody. You’re watching Money Matters. I’m Dalhit Dhaliwal in New York. Thank you for joining us now.

As we’ve mentioned earlier, record fuel prices are crippling the nation’s airlines. And as a result, some airlines are attempting to a merge¹. And others are raising fuel surcharges as well as their base fares. So what does it mean for passengers? Here to help us answer that question is Dane Gropes. He’s a senior editor at Newsweek. Now he wrote a column in Newsweek magazine about the future of the airline industry. Hi, Dane, thank you very much for joining us on Money Matters.

Good to be here.

So let’s start with this merger² of um Delta³ and Northwest. Uh, talk us through briefly⁴, what does it mean for passengers?

Well, it shouldn’t mean all that much for passengers. Delta and Northwest do not have a lot of overlapping⁵ routes. Uh, they are press released that their only kind of 12 direct routes where they’re over-lapping. Northwest is very strong obviously in the north and the west, the mid-west. Delta’s dominant⁶ in the south, the eastern seaboard. So it shouldn’t make a whole lot of difference for your typical travel uh in terms of, uh, the choices they have, the routes they have.

And the, in terms of uh, just the general kind of the mayhem the airline industry is going through right now, what does that mean in terms of the big picture if these mergers⁷ start to happen and become more and more frequent?

Well, there are two possibilities here, two potential outcomes. One is that, these airlines, by merging⁸, -- excuse me – will reduce their costs, become more profitable, be able to invest in new planes, improve service generally. That’s the hope of the shareholders⁹ of these companies. The second is that they will reduce capacity, in other words, when you have fewer airlines out there, there’s a little less competition, they are gonna take some planes out of circulation. What that means is that, existing planes, existing flights will be a little more crowded. In theory, they should have more leeway to raise fares. That’s part of the hope of some of these mergers – is to take some of the vicious competition that exists out there, reduce it, so that they get a little more breathing room.

And what does that mean to the flying public? I mean, generally, is that a good thing for them or will we have to wait and see?

Well, airline, air, uh, the price rising of course is not a particularly good thing. But I argued in the column in the Newsweek this week that what we need is a little less capacity, you know. One of the things that has made flying so miserable¹⁰, especially in the New York – Washington - Boston area, is that there are just too many planes, too many planes on the runway, too many planes in the airspace. The airlines have not had the incentive¹¹ to reduce their capacity. So to the extend, it means there are fewer flights, you know, sitting on the runway at LaGuardia, sitting on the runway at Reagan National. Uh, some of this reduced capacity may make flying more pleasant, if not more cheap.

And, uh, you said an interesting thing in your column, uh, the Money Culture column this week. You talked about how a recession could actually help the industry. How come?

Well, two things happen when you get a recession. One, on the business side, corporations look to slash¹² spending. And one of the things they look to do is cut business travel. There are less deals going out, less transactions, fewer reasons for people to be flying around. And second is that discretionary fliers -- people going on vacation, yes, that’s a big ticket item to get reduce when people are feeling pinched. Some more people will be driving to the beach instead of flying down to Florida. After the last recession, the capacity of airlines nationwide was reduced by 15 percent. In other words, a lot of planes are taken out of circulation, freeing up space, making airports less crowded. I don’t think they will see that much of reduction. But we’ve already, were seeing that last month, the number of flights taken off from American airports was down almost 2 percent from the same month in the year ago. So we’re starting to see fewer planes out there.

And in terms of the general flying public, I mean, in uh, what does the recession mean for them? I mean you’ve talked about what it may possibly mean for corp. of America? I mean, do they then just sit up like tighten¹³ their belts and not travel at all or do they find alternative ways of doing the kind of business that they need to be getting on, and especially when they are small business owners?

I think increasingly people will look to alternatives, you know. As you know, and in a round-up to this, jet fuel costs are out of control and airlines are passing that on. They are hitting people with fuel surcharges; they’re charging you the check baggage; they’re charging for food and all sorts of things and so it’s making flying more expensive.

1 merge   

v.(使)结合，(使)合并，(使)合为一体

参考例句：

• I can merge my two small businesses into a large one.我可以将我的两家小商店合并为一家大商行。
• The directors have decided to merge the two small firms together.董事们已决定把这两家小商号归并起来。

2 merger   

n.企业合并，并吞

参考例句：

• Acceptance of the offer is the first step to a merger.对这项提议的赞同是合并的第一步。
• Shareholders will be voting on the merger of the companies.股东们将投票表决公司合并问题。

3 delta   

n.（流的）角洲

参考例句：

• He has been to the delta of the Nile.他曾去过尼罗河三角洲。
• The Nile divides at its mouth and forms a delta.尼罗河在河口分岔，形成了一个三角洲。

4 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

5 overlapping   

adj./n.交迭（的）

参考例句：

• There is no overlapping question between the two courses. 这两门课程之间不存在重叠的问题。
• A trimetrogon strip is composed of three rows of overlapping. 三镜头摄影航线为三排重迭的象片所组成。

6 dominant   

adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因

参考例句：

• The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
• She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。

7 mergers   

n.（两个公司的）合并( merger的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Mergers fall into three categories: horizontal, vertical, and conglomerate. 合并分为以下三种：横向合并，纵向合并和混合合并。 来自辞典例句
• Many recent mergers are concentrated within specific industries, particularly in retailing, airlines and communications. 现代许多合并企业集中进行某些特定业务，在零售业、民航和通讯业中更是如此。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件

8 merging   

合并（分类）

参考例句：

• Many companies continued to grow by merging with or buying competing firms. 许多公司通过合并或收买竞争对手的公司而不断扩大。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• To sequence by repeated splitting and merging. 用反复分开和合并的方法进行的排序。

9 shareholders   

n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The meeting was attended by 90% of shareholders. 90%的股东出席了会议。
• the company's fiduciary duty to its shareholders 公司对股东负有的受托责任

10 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

11 incentive   

n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机

参考例句：

• Money is still a major incentive in most occupations.在许多职业中，钱仍是主要的鼓励因素。
• He hasn't much incentive to work hard.他没有努力工作的动机。

12 slash   

vi.大幅度削减；vt.猛砍，尖锐抨击，大幅减少；n.猛砍，斜线，长切口，衣衩

参考例句：

• The shop plans to slash fur prices after Spring Festival.该店计划在春节之后把皮货降价。
• Don't slash your horse in that cruel way.不要那样残忍地鞭打你的马。

13 tighten   

v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧

参考例句：

• Turn the screw to the right to tighten it.向右转动螺钉把它拧紧。
• Some countries tighten monetary policy to avoid inflation.一些国家实行紧缩银根的货币政策，以避免通货膨胀。