It would be interesting if someone would do a objective comparison of the "cycles" of the airline industry in the last 40 or so years. That is, if you accept that a cycle has peaks and valleys, are the valleys getting deeper and occurring with greater frequency and duration and the peaks occurring less often, and for shorter durations, and are becoming less lofty? Super conditions such as United Airlines short lived golden contract didn't last very long. And post 9-11 recovery was very short indeed. Regarding the so-called golden era of the 80's, well, things kind of weren't so good until the mid 80's. And then the rising peak was eroded a bit by the infamous B scale. No, not every one experienced that, but I think it set many precedents, although it was a concept that was manifest over the years in different ways.