This has not been a good ten days for European airlines. BA, Ryanair and Austria all announced cuts in capacity. Austria, Lufthansa and SWISS all increased their fuel surcharges and SAS prepared the ground to announce a further round of cuts.
At BA's annual shareholders' meeting, its chairman Martin Broughton made no attempt to hide the gravity of the situation. BA was "up to its neck in perhaps the biggest crisis the aviation industry has ever known."
For good measure, he told the shareholders, no doubt hoping for a dividend next year, that if the airline broke even, it would be a "considerable achievement."
Fuel was now 35% of it costs compared with 10% just a few years ago.
The rise in fuel costs this year of £1bn is higher than BA's re-tax profits of £883m for the year ending March 31, 2008. These are not normal economics.
BA said it would announce full details of its plans early next month but these would include cuts in frequencies on some less cash generative short haul routes, a slowdown in recruitment and a rise in fares by a minimum of 4%.
Long haul, the more profitable arm of BA business, will not be affected.
Meanwhile Ryanair, Europe's largest low cost carrier and one of the few airlines which has not imposed fuel surcharges, said it was cutting its operations at Dublin and London Stansted.
It plans to ground about 10% of its fleet during the winter. This includes four aircraft at its Dublin base which will mean the scrapping of 150 flights a week.
Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's ceo, said with a fares increase of 5% and oil at $130 per barrel, the airline expected to break even this year. In the year to March, 2008, Ryanair made a €480m profit. Oil is currently hovering between $130 and $140 a barrel. It is going to be a tight run thing.
The measures announced by Austrian Airlines were bigger. Its capacity cuts will include 21% out of its flights to the US. First to go is its Vienna-London City service followed by its service to Chicago.
The airline said there would also be cuts in services within Europe. The cuts would take overall 5% out of its originally planned services for the winter and will mean the grounding of three aircraft. It also announced a freeze on recruitment.
So far this year 25 carriers have gone out of business, largely because of the cost of oil and the softening of demand.
Carriers in the US have been particularly badly hit with most major airlines announcing cuts in capacity, the grounding of aircraft and substantial job losses. There have been many predictions that European carriers would soon follow suit. This has so far not happened on anything like the scale seen in America.
The fact that the three major carriers, BA, Air France and Lufthansa, were hugely profitable last year – unlike their US counterparts – and the fact that the European economy has not receded nearly as much as America's obviously has something to do with this.
But this stance, as demonstrated by the BA chairman's warning on its profitability, gets weaker by the month. Many of Europe's smaller carriers - the ones which many analysts predict will be eaten up by the big boys- are in trouble and cutting services to survive. There is, unsurprisingly, increasing talk of mergers and closer co-operation.
With demand for flying also weakening, there seems little doubt that European carriers are also heading for a crunch. Many predict a grim autumn.
Jean-Cyril Spinetta, chairman and ceo of Air France KLM, and Willie Walsh, ceo of BA, both acknowledge that at some point, the rise in fares and surcharges and the deteriorating economy will reduce the number who fly. It seems to be a case of when not if.
"Where that level is, we don't know yet," Mr Walsh frankly admitted at his shareholders' meeting.
The last ten days have brought him closer to finding out.