Life is complicated. So are airlines. In this case, airlines are a business designed not to have runaway profit. The unions are very powerful. They know how mu

Life is complicated. So are airlines. In this case, airlines are a business designed not to have runaway profit. The unions are very powerful. They know how much money the airline is making a demand large percentages of it. They leave a nominal profit for key investors but shareholders as a whole are regularly left out. In fact, if you look at the entire history of commercial flight, the industry is break-even. That's not a fluke. If costs were higher, unions would get a smaller cut. If costs were lower, unions would take more. Philip Greenspun has some great writing on this, as well as the old, shortlived but fantastic Enplaned blog.