JamesWhitcombRiley
Lead Service Attendant
The airline industry runs at a 2% to 3% profit margin, quite a contrast to freight rail. On Bloomberg radio guest analyst Richard Aboulafia kept citing that figure when describing the airliner manufacturing industry (available without a subscription as a podcast episode, sorry readers). He says what the airlines want now is "200 to 230 seats, about 5,000 nautical miles."
Maybe entrepreneurs get into the airline business for the same reason teenagers work at the mall, they're familiar with it. Or, it has some creative appeal:
Braniff
Everything flying now must be greener than that (ha!), but the amount of air travel is so much higher. Aeroflot was still flying high trust planes in the early 2000s. A friend described to me being a passenger on a delayed Aeroflot flight at Heathrow, and when it finally was cleared the pilot took off like a rocket.
Coincidentally also on Bloomberg is more of a straight news piece on greener flying. The article seems to be free: No-Frills Flying Emerges as Travel’s Painful, Greener Future, with interesting charts courtesy of Envest Global and the IATA. It could be right.Okay, everyone, in case the subtext of why I am posting about this isn't clear:
Fossil fuel dependency is a big problem in the United States economy, with geopolitical, economic and environmental consequences that will continue to increase.
Even people who are environmentally conscious seem to take flying for granted. My theory is that people who have flown on a low-cost, convenient flight between destination airports believe that this service model is sustainable and will eventually spread, even when experience and math show that this isn't the case. But because flight is engrained in middle-class culture, the expectation will continue that flight is the most "reasonable" method of travel.
Maybe entrepreneurs get into the airline business for the same reason teenagers work at the mall, they're familiar with it. Or, it has some creative appeal:
Braniff
Everything flying now must be greener than that (ha!), but the amount of air travel is so much higher. Aeroflot was still flying high trust planes in the early 2000s. A friend described to me being a passenger on a delayed Aeroflot flight at Heathrow, and when it finally was cleared the pilot took off like a rocket.
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