Houston has lift-off as oil price rises

Willie Walsh must be a sucker for punishment. Oil hits $135 a barrel. Every airline on the planet is squealing. So where does the British Airways chief executive stick himself for a few days? Houston, Texas – the energy capital of the world.

Few of the 2.1m residents of the fourth biggest city in the US could claim to feel Walsh’s pain – unless they happen to work for Texas-based Continental Airlines.


The locals whinge about “gas” reaching $4 a gallon – still vastly cheaper than petrol in Britain. As well they might, given that the only way to traverse Houston’s sprawl is via its freeways. But, otherwise, the rocketing price of the black stuff is something to raise the Stetson to.

Ask Jack Stoneberger, travel services supervisor at Occidental Oil and Gas. “It’s utopia,” he says with a grin. “But we understand it’s also cyclical.”

Just how cyclical oil is today, given the voracious demand from China and India, is a question that bugs every airline chief. But right now, says Stoneberger, for the citizens of Houston “it’s like boomtown again – though it’s not quite advertised as such, because we want to keep expectations lower than in the 1980s. Then, it was everyone out on the street waving flags. Today, I don’t think anyone wants to jinx it”.

Telegraph