Another day, and another spate of stories from the airlines: first is news that Canadian low cost long hauler Zoom has suspended all flights as its cash dries up in the face of horrible fuel costs. The firm employs 260 people here in the UK. The thousands of people due to fly with Zoom in the coming weeks have been told to rebook with other carriers. Cheers. So that’s Zoom, Oasis, Eos, Maxjet and Silverjet all gone in the last few months. Will a name we recognise be next? Not if TUI Travel, Lufthansa and Thomas Cook have anything to do with it. They are looking at lumping together TUI Fly Germany, Condor (owned by Thomas Cook) and Lufthansa’s Germanwings in a deal aimed at securing cost savings. There’s no certainty the deal will go ahead and it will be funny peculiar to catch arch rivals TUI and Thomas Cook in bed together, but the group hug response to the troubles in the industry may well be the only way to survive. A bit like facing the sharks on board the Indianapolis…”I’ll catch it for 30, but I’ll eat it for 15.”

Its all very well BAA being told to sell 3 of their major airports, but what you should be really interested in is “whose going to buy them?” Here are the runners and riders, ripe for a CV in the post: Manchester Airports Group – majority owned by Manchester City Council, and said to have chased US and UK private equity cash to grow their empire; Changi Airports – the Singapore Government that owns nearly 50% of Virgin Atlantic; Fraport – German. ‘Nuff said. Hotchtief – Germany’s biggest construction firm with an eye on Gatwick to add to investments in Athens, Hamburg and Sydney airports; Global Infrastructure Partners – joint owned by Credit Suisse and General Electric they already own the majority of London’s City airport; and Macquarie – Australian bank that already owns Bristol airport. My work here is done. Over to you.

Read this if you are at all interested in holding a conversation with airline or infrastructure employers: Superhero-sounding, The Competition Commission has told airport wrangler BAA that they may have to sell three of its seven UK airports because of concerns about its market dominance, claiming BAA’s current ownership structure was having “adverse consequences” for passengers and airlines (its owned by Spanish boss Ferrovial).  Worse still for the firm, the watchdog is recommending that they sell two of its three airports in the South East - Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted. It also believes BAA should not be allowed to continue to own airports in both Glasgow and Edinburgh. BAA stiffened two fingers and said it had “no intention” of selling Heathrow, its largest airport, going on to describe the regulator’s verdict as “flawed” and said the forced sale of leading airports would be “counter-productive”. That said BAA boss Colin Matthews said he accepted the report’s concerns about “poor service” and “frustration” for passengers but went on to sate that the break-up of the company could threaten efforts to build new runways at airports in London, seen as vital to boosting passenger capacity and keeping the city competitive as a business location. The final decision on the company’s future will be taken next April. Meantime, the airlines can enjoy the one bit of good news they’ve had all year: Easyjet boss Andy Harrison: “We are very pleased that the Competition Commission has recognised what is a fundamental problem for UK airports.” Virgin Atlantic said BAA “still acted like a monopoly” and had neglected much-needed improvements at Gatwick, focusing instead on Heathrow.

Providing it doesn’t US regulatory rules, British Airways has sealed an alliance with American Airlines that will allow the two carriers to fix fares, routes and schedules together. (Fare fixing – haven’t they just got in trouble for that?!) The alliance will also include Spain’s Iberia, which is merging with BA. Under the business agreement, the three airlines will co-operate on flights between the US, Mexico (where I’m going for Christmas) and Canada and the EU, Switzerland (where I’m never going back to) and Norway (where I owe someone a lot of money). Virgin Airlines has been quick to get the fidgets, pointing out that the alliance creates the world’s biggest airline, trumping the competition. And if you don’t have to compete, you can raise prices and that’s bad for you, me and us. Branson even wrote to Barack Obama and John McCain to warn them of the threat to the industry of the alliance. However BA would argue that it will reduce its cost structure, which it can then pass on, to a degree, to passengers – who should also enjoy easier journeys to more destinations.

With a full tank of petrol increasingly matching the GDP of Ghana, the global airline industry will fly 60m fewer seats in the run-up to Christmas – the equivalent to a 7% cut in flights (it only dipped 5% after 9-11 when you had more chance of getting Mister T on a plane than me). Ryanair, easyJet and BA are all reducing services. Even my Virgin flight to Mexico has been knocked around. Bastards. Its sad: 1,700 aircraft have been to the skies since 2005, and so we can expect stalwarts like Boeing, Rolls Royce and Airbus to feel the pinch from something of a boom time. The global commercial airline fleet is estimated at 19,000 fact fans. A third of the global capacity cuts are taking place in the US domestic market, but the transatlantic market is moving in the opposite direction with a 1% increase in seats - due to the Open Skies treaty that has liberalised air travel between the US and Europe.