With every cloud there is a silver lining. Just as Silverjet was closing its doors, shares in rival airlines, including British Airways, were climbing despite the flag carrier's well publicised difficulties with fuel costs.

BA yesterday risked losing holiday traffic by announcing that it will charge a £218 surcharge on return flights to Florida and California. Customers may look askance, but investors were pleased to see it passing its extra costs on to passengers.

The collapse of Silverjet also provides the happy, for BA, situation that business class capacity has been taken out of the market. Analysts at Citigroup reckon that net business class capacity has fallen by a fifth since the beginning of the year.

Since December all three business class-only airlines - MaxJet, Eos and Silverjet - have collapsed, reducing the business class capacity across the Atlantic by roughly 30 per cent. American Airlines has also terminated its London Stansted/ New York service. This more than offsets the increase in capacity that the launch of open skies ushered in, when Delta and Continental added new services this spring.

BA has invested heavily in its transatlantic business-class product in the last year in the face of these upstarts. Now the opportunity is there for it to cease almost half the critical transatlantic market, on the back of Silverjet's demise.

But the main reason airline shares, including easyJet, have recovered steadily in the last two days is the easing oil price.

Having hit an all-time high of $135 a barrel last week, oil has slipped back to $127 a barrel. The price has weakened as there has been mounting evidence that high prices are starting to erode demand in the short term.

Even at this level however, it is far in excess of the $70 - $80 a barrel on which airlines have traditionally budgeted. Shares in BA may have had a respite today - but it is only a few days' breathing space.

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