It was just over as week ago that Lawrence Hunt, ceo of Silverjet, confidently announced that the all-business class airline would achieve its first month of pre-tax profit in March.
It must have seemed at the time a reasonable hope. But yesterday (February 13), Silverjet shares were at an all time low. Eight days can be a long time in aviation.
Mr Hunt's optimistic claim was made against a mixed background. The airline, in its first full year of operations, reported that available seats on its services had risen from 16,200 to 104,600, the load factor had risen from 54% to 58% and revenue seats (the number of seats generating commercial revenue) rose from 8,729 to 60,755.
During the year it had expanded it services from its Luton base to Newark New York and started a new service to Dubai. It had also ordered two extra planes, due for delivery in March 2008.
But this was all against a background of a falling share price. Silverjet shares rose to a high of 220p in March 2007 but since then they have been, with the exception of one short rally, falling.
They hit 150p in August, 100p in September and 50p in January.
Since February 4 - the day before Mr Hunt made his prediction of a profit - they have fallen from 38p to 17p yesterday morning (February 13). By close of business on the London Stock Exchange yesterday, they had sunk a further 8.82% to 15.5p.
Their most recent descent was pushed along by the damaging announcement this week of David and Simon Reubens - the Reuben Brothers who have successful businesses in metal and property - that one of their companies TFB (Mortgages) was not going to convert a £10m loan to Silverjet into equity in the airline at 60p a share.
However Silverjet has secured the loan on what Mr Hunt said were "highly attractive rates which are highly beneficial to our business." The loan is repayable by December 2009.
If the Reubens' change of heart was bad news, then its rival, Eos Airlines, chipped in to make sure this was a week Silverjet would remember. Eos, a US-based all business class airline, said it planned to start services from London Stansted to both Newark New York and Dubai, putting it in direct competition with Silverjet.
This is as clear an indication as you will get that the battle for the lucrative transatlantic market is intensifying. This time last year, there were three all business class airlines operating between the UK and New York.
MAXJet, also a US carrier, went out of business last December leaving the UK-US field to Eos and Silverjet. In France, L'Avion has successfully been running a growing all business class service between Paris and New York while Lufthansa has also successfully run for several years all business class services to Newark and Chicago.
BA has now also thrown its hat in the ring with the announcement of an all business class service form London City Airport to New York starting nest year.
There is a market for all business class services, but it is limited. Only a relatively small number of companies and individuals are prepared to pay for the luxury service. But while the doomsayers were wrong in predicting the early demise of the all business class carriers, there remains a vague feeling that a nasty recession will see them off.
But this may not be the case. While the French and German carriers seems secure, the UK-US market can bear one, perhaps two but not really three.
The coming head on battle between Eos and Silverjet will be one to watch with perhaps one emerging to do battle with BA in 2009.
But this will also be just a taste of the much larger battle due to start on the Heathrow-US routes when the US-EU Open Skies deal comes into force in March. There are unlikely to be many holds barred in this battle.