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Airlines are a pretty shitty business: commodity product, many competitors, low margins, high capital costs, high regulatory risk, high exposure to ever-rising
by nickpinkston 14y ago
Airlines are a pretty shitty business: commodity product, many competitors, low margins, high capital costs, high regulatory risk, high exposure to ever-rising oil prices, etc.
There's some areas in the higher end stuff, but right now JetBlue / Southwest are about as progressive as you get.
- mindcrime 14y agoAirlines are a pretty shitty business: commodity product, many competitors, low margins, high capital costs, high regulatory risk, high exposure to ever-rising oil prices, etc. I read an interesting blurb somewhere recently (forget where, sorry) that pointed out that it doesn't actually take that much capital to start and run a (small) airline. You can lease a plane and start out serving only one route, and you've got yourself an airline. Of course, how much capital is "a lot" is relative... let's just say that I won't be starting an airline anytime soon. But still, apparently it's easier to break into that business that you might think, looking at it from the outside.
- davidf18 14y agoAir Alaska is very innovative with using Satellite guidance for landings. It also has high margins compared with other airlines. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/business/alaska-airlines-flying-above-an-industrys-troubles.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/business/alaska-airlines-f...