In a Q&A at UNC in 1996 (part 1 of which is linked below), Warren Buffett noted that doing the math from the Wright brothers all the way through 1996, the airli

In a Q&A at UNC in 1996 (part 1 of which is linked below), Warren Buffett noted that doing the math from the Wright brothers all the way through 1996, the airline industry overall had yet to make a dime of profit. The silver lining is that perhaps that failure is wiped out by the amount of unrelated profit-making that flight has enabled. But it's still quite weird that flying passengers around is so hard to build a business around. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApjnM0fIjXg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApjnM0fIjXg