8 ms·

Airlines are quite a special case. Learned a lot from this a few months ago: https://davidoks.blog/p/why-airlines-are-always-going-bankrupt https://davidoks.bl

Airlines are quite a special case. Learned a lot from this a few months ago: https://davidoks.blog/p/why-airlines-are-always-going-bankrupt https://davidoks.blog/p/why-airlines-are-always-going-bankru... I've had plenty of bad airline experiences and wished they gave me more for my trouble, but clearly they are unable to at current margins. If you want the market to provide a better service, it already does: you can pay tons more to fly private, either a charter or your own jet you purchased!

teachrdan 29d ago
> I've had plenty of bad airline experiences and wished they gave me more for my trouble, but clearly they are unable to at current margins. It's weird to see people simp for the airline industry. A cursory google search shows that United Airlines, to take one example, made $4,300,000,000 in profits before taxes last year. This is money that could easily be spent on things like better maintenance, more pilots and crew, and other expenditures that would make flights less apt to be delayed or canceled. Instead it goes to shareholders and executives. https://www.united.com/en/us/newsroom/announcements/cision-125435 https://www.united.com/en/us/newsroom/announcements/cision-1...
- ngriffiths 29d ago
  This was a fantastic year for United, and the margin is ~6%! They lost a similar amount in 2020. The earnings history definitely backs up the story of relatively low margins, weak growth and a fair amount of volatility to deal with.
  - teachrdan 29d ago
    > They lost a similar amount in 2020 I wouldn't be surprised that an airline lost money in one of the worst travel years of all time (due to Covid). Cursory searching shows United made more than $3,000,000,000 in 2024. So even if 2025 was an unusually good year for them, it wasn't a complete anomaly. Just goes to show that when flights get delayed due to insufficient available crew or maintenance issues, it's a savings that's passed on to investors and the c-suite at the expense of consumers.
    - stephenhuey 29d ago
      Sorry man, your "just goes to show" ain't gonna cut it. Yes, I want better perks when the going gets rough, but it's not enough to blame only the c-suite and shareholders. This isn't software dev. Prior discussion on the article I shared in the other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48025282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48025282
      - teachrdan 28d ago
        > Yes, I want better perks when the going gets rough Maybe you're not understanding what we're saying. There have been numerous comments remarking on flights that were delayed or canceled due to corporate decisions, which reduce to excess savings on (or insufficient investment in) maintenance and staffing. This has nothing to do with "better perks"! Every dollar of profit is a dollar that could have been spent on maintenance and staffing, or god forbid, proactive investment in better systems and infrastructure. No one is saying that airlines should become non-profits. But I have a feeling three or four or five BILLION dollars in profits is too much.
        stephenhuey 28d ago
        I will be clear: I don't want to stand in line for 3 hours at Frankfurt with a MacBook Pro and a million other things in my backpack to be offered only a faraway hotel I don't want, no vouchers or cash, just take it or leave it, and no other compensation, and my luggage being lost for literally 11 weeks. My understanding is that a portion of net profits might go towards rewarding shareholders through buybacks (bolstering the stock price), but most of it is reinvested into the business, i.e. exactly what you are saying you wish they would do. A windfall enables them to purchase more aircraft and pay down debt accumulated in the years they do not make much in profit, of which there were many in recent history. Is it too much profit? I don't know, but they're spending over $7 billion in capital expenditures this year. I'm not sure what to say to you wanting them to have better tech. I wrote code for a major shipping company over 2 decades ago, and it's impressive to me that airlines mishandle bags at a far lower rate (under half a percent) than UPS and Fedex which usually are around 3-5%. I'm not a logistics expert. Will things get better with robots or something? Time will tell.
- stephenhuey 29d ago
  Wow! Simp?! What a word. A wrong word, though. So very, very wrong. Would you prefer I spend some time telling my personal horror stories? Or should I point out that while a meaningful minority of those profits have recently been going to buybacks (a billion or less) which do benefit shareholders and executives to some degree (although a lot of executive compensation is already paid before we're looking at net profits), most of those are going to the needs of the airline which operates in a very capital-intensive industry. They have do do things like, y'know, BUY AIRPLANES. A bit pricier than those MacBooks a typical SaaS is purchasing. Apparently, after the industry was deregulated, it made it very difficult to keep some routes stable, and the article calls into question whether you can actually have a free market ever reach equilibrium or if the strange nature of this particular industry will always be pushing one of the players towards bankruptcy. Of course, you only performed a cursory look. Perhaps if you had put in a little effort, you'd realize you didn't just singlehandedly fix the airline industry! That link I shared was not some random, cursory look at the biz. I felt I learned a lot from it. I'm not able to verify whether the conclusions are accurate, but if they are, it sounds like the business has some pretty unusual problems, and where to go from here is not at all clear.

teachrdan 29d ago

> I've had plenty of bad airline experiences and wished they gave me more for my trouble, but clearly they are unable to at current margins. It's weird to see people simp for the airline industry. A cursory google search shows that United Airlines, to take one example, made $4,300,000,000 in profits before taxes last year. This is money that could easily be spent on things like better maintenance, more pilots and crew, and other expenditures that would make flights less apt to be delayed or canceled. Instead it goes to shareholders and executives. https://www.united.com/en/us/newsroom/announcements/cision-125435 https://www.united.com/en/us/newsroom/announcements/cision-1...

ngriffiths 29d ago
This was a fantastic year for United, and the margin is ~6%! They lost a similar amount in 2020. The earnings history definitely backs up the story of relatively low margins, weak growth and a fair amount of volatility to deal with.
- teachrdan 29d ago
  > They lost a similar amount in 2020 I wouldn't be surprised that an airline lost money in one of the worst travel years of all time (due to Covid). Cursory searching shows United made more than $3,000,000,000 in 2024. So even if 2025 was an unusually good year for them, it wasn't a complete anomaly. Just goes to show that when flights get delayed due to insufficient available crew or maintenance issues, it's a savings that's passed on to investors and the c-suite at the expense of consumers.
  - stephenhuey 29d ago
    Sorry man, your "just goes to show" ain't gonna cut it. Yes, I want better perks when the going gets rough, but it's not enough to blame only the c-suite and shareholders. This isn't software dev. Prior discussion on the article I shared in the other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48025282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48025282
    - teachrdan 28d ago
      > Yes, I want better perks when the going gets rough Maybe you're not understanding what we're saying. There have been numerous comments remarking on flights that were delayed or canceled due to corporate decisions, which reduce to excess savings on (or insufficient investment in) maintenance and staffing. This has nothing to do with "better perks"! Every dollar of profit is a dollar that could have been spent on maintenance and staffing, or god forbid, proactive investment in better systems and infrastructure. No one is saying that airlines should become non-profits. But I have a feeling three or four or five BILLION dollars in profits is too much.
      - stephenhuey 28d ago
        I will be clear: I don't want to stand in line for 3 hours at Frankfurt with a MacBook Pro and a million other things in my backpack to be offered only a faraway hotel I don't want, no vouchers or cash, just take it or leave it, and no other compensation, and my luggage being lost for literally 11 weeks. My understanding is that a portion of net profits might go towards rewarding shareholders through buybacks (bolstering the stock price), but most of it is reinvested into the business, i.e. exactly what you are saying you wish they would do. A windfall enables them to purchase more aircraft and pay down debt accumulated in the years they do not make much in profit, of which there were many in recent history. Is it too much profit? I don't know, but they're spending over $7 billion in capital expenditures this year. I'm not sure what to say to you wanting them to have better tech. I wrote code for a major shipping company over 2 decades ago, and it's impressive to me that airlines mishandle bags at a far lower rate (under half a percent) than UPS and Fedex which usually are around 3-5%. I'm not a logistics expert. Will things get better with robots or something? Time will tell.
stephenhuey 29d ago
Wow! Simp?! What a word. A wrong word, though. So very, very wrong. Would you prefer I spend some time telling my personal horror stories? Or should I point out that while a meaningful minority of those profits have recently been going to buybacks (a billion or less) which do benefit shareholders and executives to some degree (although a lot of executive compensation is already paid before we're looking at net profits), most of those are going to the needs of the airline which operates in a very capital-intensive industry. They have do do things like, y'know, BUY AIRPLANES. A bit pricier than those MacBooks a typical SaaS is purchasing. Apparently, after the industry was deregulated, it made it very difficult to keep some routes stable, and the article calls into question whether you can actually have a free market ever reach equilibrium or if the strange nature of this particular industry will always be pushing one of the players towards bankruptcy. Of course, you only performed a cursory look. Perhaps if you had put in a little effort, you'd realize you didn't just singlehandedly fix the airline industry! That link I shared was not some random, cursory look at the biz. I felt I learned a lot from it. I'm not able to verify whether the conclusions are accurate, but if they are, it sounds like the business has some pretty unusual problems, and where to go from here is not at all clear.