Airbnb Pulled Back from the Brink
This is PR nonsense to help promote Airbnb&#x27;s IPO plan, a plan exclusively launched to cash out before the buzzer sounds. Understandably AirBnb wants to create a story of how they brilliantly pulled the plane up at the last minute, and despite laying of 25% of the company, are still healthy and fine.<p>These temporary boosts in one small sector are just blips that mask the fact that the leisure travel industry is in major, major trouble.<p>There was a temporary boom in younger people looking to get out of cities and find some space this summer, but as more and more people lose jobs, or have jobs that are threatened there is going to be a smaller and smaller group of people willing to pay much less for travel.<p>On top of this I&#x27;m still very bearish on leisure air travel. There have been numerous articles on HN about the two major drivers of airline revenue: credit card miles and corporate travel. Corporate travel will never return to pre-covid levels, and credit card miles are a big part of this as well.<p>Airlines are already starting to have major layoffs (when I mentioned this months ago the comments were that this wouldn&#x27;t happen, but here we are). Airlines seriously expected government bailout, but it didn&#x27;t happen and so furloughs, which will become layoffs did.<p>This will mean that air travel will return to a luxury good, which will make leisure travel a luxury experience. Likewise, gen-z workers are realizing that the economy is not always good times and full speed ahead. The idea of booking a last minute beach trip with a bunch of friends will quickly seem like a luxury of another age.<p>We still haven&#x27;t seen the consequences of this pandemic and our fragile startup ecosystem start to unfold.