SnoopyAK

Airline CEOs Unite Against Oil Speculation

In an open letter from 12 of the biggest airlines, CEOs said that the only way to bring the price of air travel down and to keep thousands of jobs is to slash fuel prices.

"Our country is facing a possible sharp economic downturn because of skyrocketing oil and fuel prices, but by pulling together, we can all do something to help now," read the letter.

The letter -- as a part of a campaign dubbed Stop Oil Speculation Now -- was signed by CEOs from Alaska Airlines, Inc., Alaska Airlines, Inc., Hawaiian Airlines, Inc., AirTran Airways, Midwest Airlines, Continental Airlines, Inc., Southwest Airlines Co., US Airways Group, Inc., Northwest Airlines, Inc. and United Airlines, Inc.

Read the rest of the story here...

Read the open letter here...

Here is how we can help! Tell congress to act now to lower energy costs. The oil price bubble is unfairly taxing American families and us travelers. Click here to send a letter to your congressmen and/or women via the "Stop Oil Speculation Now" website.

wanaflyforless

I was amazed to recieve an email signed by so many competitors.

tony2x

Not really, they are all as stuffed as each other.

JPat

There is a kicker in this letter that pushes for opening oil exploration further within the United States.

Not everyone who flies is going to be in favor of this so I encourage people to carefully read the letters contents and modify it as suits their views before sending off to your Senators and Representative.

SEAFFLYER

This is a must do.

tusphotog

And how would that help airlines in this current environment?

rjque

This is a good catch. People should really read these things before sending them to Congress.

mrchris

At the risk of opening up a big can of worms and turning this political....

We cannot have it both ways, we cannot have cheap oil/cheap energy and cut off any and all sources of that energy because its popular and or politically correct.

Nuclear - latest generation reactors in Europe work well and safely, yet no one can get them approved here.

Oil - Can't drill or explore much of anywhere new in the US, despite enormous reserves, which means dependence on foreign sources and between the commodities market and OPEC leaves us paying big bucks...

Refineries - No one will allow any new refineries, nor have any new ones been built in decades.

Do we need to develop new and better sources of energy YES, but it will take years to develop and build out those sources, we cannot just change overnight a system/source that has been in use for 100 years.

What impact would it have on oil speculation and OPEC just to announce opening up some areas to exploration. They start to panic at a reduced need of foreign oil and increase production, driving prices down. Simply cannot have cheap oil and no new sources.

ANC

do we want lower fuel prices or not? I do so I say start digging! You cant have it both ways. And sure yeah ethanol might be a good alternative...if used suplemental and not as a primary fuel. Look at the price of skyrocketing cereal and rice due to people using that stuff! Cant have it both ways....either pay or dig! Pick 1 and personally I pick dig. Ive heard that we have the possibilities to mine more than saudi arabia out of utah and wyoming yet we arent allowed to! One of the most advanced nations in the world yet we are oil dependant and unwilling to use our own. They say they are for reserves and a crisis. Well we are getting close to crisis levels! What are we hoarding it all for? For when the martians attack? If it is being saved for some so called emergencies how many months would it take congress to pass an emergency delcaration to tap new wells or use reserves? By the time we were allowed to use it we would be dead anyhow! Sheesh....Ok rant over lol

jddssc121

I vote for Nuclear powered planes!

tusphotog

As do I--especially if they glow at night!

As for digging for oil in the US, here's the problem: it's putting a fairly small bandage on a large problem. What happens when that oil dries up? Besides, it will take at least 10 years for new drilling sites to get into full production.

mrchris

Well I agree its a temporary solution, however its more than a "small" bandaid. First, no matter any other alternative solution, it will be faster to drill for more oil short term, than trying to change to a whole new solution and infrastructure. Second, just the impact on the mood of the speculators driving this up in the commodities market and OPEC's control of production would have an immediate effect. Most of the OPEC nations are capable of turning up production immediately, they are not maxxed out, they are choosing to limit production and are in a near monopoly situation, decrease that monopoly or at least threaten that monopoloy and it will help. Any long term solution is going to need a stop gap to get the cost of oil down. Realistically there isnt really much of a shortage, a great deal of the current price is a "bubble" created by speculation. There is a shortage of refinery capacity, but that is our own doing.

Any alternative that ultimately frees up oil for transportation as opposed to other uses will help. Such as generating electricity from better options (hydro, wind, possibly nuclear) freeing up natural gas that many power plants use for things like heating, freeing up millions of barrels of oil going to home heating. Obviously it makes sense to do everything we can to be more efficient, but that is simply not enough.

If Congress just seriously discussed and or approved drilling in ANWR, I would bet that OPEC and other oil producing nations would bump up production enough to drive the price to a reasonable level in hopes that Congress would then shelve it again. Sure that is a short term solution but it would give us some much needed relief.

Of course it doesnt help that many businesses and industries are taking advantage of oil/gas prices to mark products up more than their actual cost of those increases. For example milk is up nearly a buck a gallon, but it certainly doesnt cost a dollar a gallon more than last summer to ship a gallon of milk, the cost of shipping milk is a relatively small percentage of its total price.

TProphet

Feedstock is up considerably versus last year - corn has more than doubled for example. This will get worse before it gets better due to the Iowa floods. There is more that goes into a gallon of milk than the cost of the jug (made from oil) and the oil used to transport it.

As for domestic drilling - the US has less than 10% of the world's proven oil reserves. If we drilled everywhere that there was domestic oil, spoiling the environment along the way and potentially wrecking the coastal tourism industries in California and Florida as well, it really wouldn't amount to much. A more promising technology is coal gasification; we have lots of coal, and SASOL (from South Africa) has the technology to turn it into diesel. The technology is proven; it helped to keep apartheid in South Africa and the de Klerk administration in power for many years--it's about time some good comes from it. I'm not sure why this isn't being done already.

The cheapest barrel of oil is the one you never burn--just like the cheapest kilowatt of electricity is the one you never use. Unfortunately, there has been remarkable lack of foresight on the part of our nation's energy policy and our nation's automakers when it comes to improving efficiency. Of course, pushing through a less than toothless increase to CAFE (and closing some of the more egregious loopholes) takes a political spine, which is something Congress entirely lacks in an election year. Well, pretty much anytime actually, particularly in an election year though. Plus the small matter of who's paying to keep senators like Murkowski and Stevens in office...

cheveyo

Opening ANWR (for example) for drilling shouldn't even be considered a band-ade. It's impact on the global and national fuel prices have been estimated by the Energy Information Administration to be .4 to 1.2% of total oil consumption when it would finally be consumable in 2018 (the soonest oil from ANWR could be sold). Their best case scenario shows price drop of only $1.44 per barrel by 2027, and that is only if the highest resource estimates are true. If there is less oil than they think, then the impact will be even less.

Also, considering the games OPEC plays with their prices, it's common specualation that they could easily neutralize ANWR's price impact simply by reducing its oil export by an equal amount.

Unless the refined oil from ANWR goes directly to the airlines, drilling won't help at this point.

Quokka

Wrong.

More drilling in Alaska would indeed immediately help airlines -- those that serve Alaska.