Simple poll.
Will any of the Big 3 automakers still be here in 10 years?
None of the Chrysler brands will be around in 10 years.
Some company will own the trademark Chevy but that company will not resemble today’s General Motors.
The Ford name will be retired.
Will any of the legacy airlines still be around?
After a series of bankrupticies and reogranizations, there will be a companyor companies who owns the names **United ** and American.
None of the rest will survive.
I agree, i can’t see GM lasting 9in its present form). It will survive as a name,owned by some asian automaker. The airlines? Probably two or three will survive. If the world survives the oil price hikes, air travel may revive. But FORD? unless they immediately downsize, and stop trying to sell 12 MPG SUVs, they are done for.
Interesting question.
I think many of the brands will survive, though perhaps under different ownership or organization. I think that the Ford, Chevy, etc. nameplates still carry too much equity with many consumers for them to just fade away.
Then again, 20 years ago, if you’d asked this question about Pan Am, TWA, Plymouth, or Oldsmobile, I probably would have given you a similar answer. So, don’t trust the ad guy here; he clearly doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. 
Assumptions: oil prices continue to increase due to underlying physical and geological constraints. Replacement fuels are made in smaller quantities. No unexpected new power source is developed. No far-more-energy-dense battery is developed.
I think that there will be companies named Chrysler, Ford and GM, but they will be much smaller. They will have sold their overseas specialty brands. They will also have ended their multiple-nameplate habits, so that you won’t get a vehicle by Pontiac and an almost-identical vehicle by Chevy, for example. Pontiac and Chevy may still exist, but they will have different vehicles. Will this require alterations to eliminate overlap in dealer networks? Yes. So be it.
Airlines… the small ones are going. The big ones will consolidate and some will remain, but they will be more like the small ones now. Cattle class will go; if you can afford to fly, the experience will be much richer.
This means that many airports will delay or cancel planned expansions. Pearson airport in Toronto, for example, will indefinitely delay Pier G. Pier H will never be started.
Cars will still be around so the automakers will definitely be around. You have to get to work, the grocery store, to visit relatives, etc. And many many Americans don’t live anywhere near public transportation. The sooner the automakers get alt-fuel or electric vehicles on the market and reasonably priced, the better.
The airlines seem to be in more trouble, not so sure about them. People will still want/need to fly, but I bet it will get a lot more expensive, therefore lowering the number of airlines.
I wasn’t suggesting that won’t be car companies in 10 years. I’m confident Honda/Toyota and most of the Asian and European companies will still be around. Not sure about the Big 3 US companies.
Well there’s really big 2 US companies, since Chrysler is now part of Daimler (right?)
I think Ford and GM will be around, a certain percentage people will keep buying American cars, even if the definition of “American” keeps getting more strained. There’s nothing really that wrong with the current offerings of Ford and GM, they’re just behind the “green” times right now, with a couple minor exceptions like the Escape Hybrid.
GM - a division of Tesla Motors…
Heh, not when the Teslas are $100,000+
I think Daimler sold off most of Chrysler last year, but my guess for the auto industry is international mergers. Some financing group, that can marginally call themselves American, will own a majority of the the big 3, and then form some kind of partnership containing both European and Asian components. That way you can still “Buy American” while lots of the design or construction is done other places.
Airlines - the whole hub-and-spoke system will continue to take a beating, as smaller airlines cherry-pick specific, high value, routes. Several of the currently national or international airlines will retreat back to regional territories, where they can dominate a local market and pretty much set ticket prices without everyone, and their uncle, competing. There will be a couple of airlines (possibly American and United) that will continue to fly major hub-to-hub flight, with ever larger planes. The third part will be smaller, speciallized airlines that run specific routes, with no attempt to services a whole area, i.e. Minneapolis - Las Vegas once a day. Chicago - Orlando.
The problem is defining what you mean by continue to exist.
The Continental Airlines that call a legacy carrier really isn’t. The original Continetal was bought up in 1981, dragged through bankruptcy and reorganized into an entirely different airlines.
Ford has been continuously controlled by the Ford family, but is GM is a corporation. Is it the same company that originally manufactured Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Elmore and Oakland – but not Chevrolet?
Which Chrysler are we talking about? The original company, the one that bought AMC so it could get the Jeep brand, the one that got bought by Daimler or the one that’s now owned by a private investment group?
My guess is that maybe either American or United will disappear, and perhaps Chrysler, but everything else will still exist and be controlled by separate entitites.
All of the above will be around. The airlines have the biggest capacity to be taken over, go bankrupt, or something else.
I can’t imagine how this would happen. If anything, the experience will be worse. The overwhelming trend in air travel has always been towards cheaper and cheaper flights, partly at the expense of comfort. People have been unwilling to pay extra for comfort. As the cost of air travel goes up due to fuel costs, this will only increase, not decrease, since the budget slack will have to come from somewhere. It’s a nice little fantasy to think that we’ll revert to the glory days of aviation when only gentlefolk traveled through the skies, but it ain’t gonna happen.
I’d guess that most of the brand names will still be around. They’re too valuable to mothball just because the company folds.
I’d be very surprised if GM or Ford disappeared in any meaningful manner.