Here’s my best quick stab at an answer.

Economic history drives everything in aviation hiring. There are shelves of books on this, but here’s the short version:

The Great Depression was only broken by WWII. Coming out of it, the U.S. sold the world on the idea that we had “won,” and Bretton Woods locked the dollar in as the global reserve. Gold was pegged at $32/oz.

The Korean and Vietnam wars created huge deficits, and one by one foreign countries started demanding gold instead of Treasuries. The U.S. didn’t have the reserves, so Nixon broke the gold peg in 1971. That allowed the dollar to devalue and debts to be paid back with future inflation.

The Cold War and Reaganomics unleashed massive defense spending, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the Third Reich’s rearmament. A few small recessions followed, then the dot-com bust and 9/11, and suddenly we were in a two-decade Global War on Terror that exploded deficits again.

The Great Financial Crisis hit in 2008, and deficits swelled from 2008–2019 without much improvement to wages. Then came COVID — which, in my view, was a form of economic warfare that accelerated what was already coming.

Now? Foreign buyers have largely stepped away from U.S. Treasuries. The Fed and money markets are carrying the load, and the dollar has already lost ~7% YTD against a basket of currencies. Look at the Kuwaiti dinar for comparison — this will get worse.

To answer your specific question: yes, there have been three major stagnations — the Great Depression, the stagflation of the 1970s, and the GFC. Many of the sharpest financial voices are saying we’re due for another, this time more likely a dollar crisis. Interest liabilities are already north of $1T annually. That means the Fed will be pressured to cut rates just so the government doesn’t default on its own debt — which guarantees more inflation without real wage growth. Meanwhile, AI will drive wage compression over the next five years. If you think commercial real estate is bad now, wait until firms realize they don’t need 50, 200, or several thousand employees.

From the airline seat, I see two competing strategies:

United: bet big, inflate their way out, with history suggesting the government will step in to shield airlines if it comes to that.

Delta: hedge for stagflation. Ed’s got nearly four decades of scars that say things don’t always end well. But he does have the option to flex 17,000 pilots next summer, tightening capacity and forcing a product shortage in targeted markets.

As a pilot, I like the UAL strategy. However, as someone who doesn't want to stare down the barrel of financial concessions during a period of potential stagflation, Ed has the better strategy.