From the article I was getting the impression that everything wrong with the airlines could be blamed on the unions. I guess the author would have said the same

From the article I was getting the impression that everything wrong with the airlines could be blamed on the unions. I guess the author would have said the same about trains had he been travelling a century ago. Airlines are a bit like football clubs or Formula 1 teams - the way to make millions at it is to start with billions. Airlines are also like railways a century or more ago - big wage bill, big fuel bill, lots of infrastructure spread out over a geographically large area, a constant need to keep everything maintained and the ever present danger that some disaster might happen. Compare that with your 'Instagram' companies that have similar sized stock market valuations. Did anyone make money out of the boom in railways? Or were all railways some type of speculative bubble where mergers, state bailouts and bankruptcy were all par for the course? In Europe the airlines don't pay tax on their fuel. If they did then there probably would not be many airlines. Whether it is trains or planes the key to making money out of it is to have some kind of trick. When you see a train or a plane packed to the gills it is impossible to imagine that the venture as a whole is anything but profitable, but, big picture, take away the tax-payer provided subsidies, the tax-payer provided infrastructure, the tax-payer provided loans and other incentives and, unless there is that trick, then it is a mug's game. The future of airlines is already here with some of the European low-cost carriers. Essentially the staff no longer have jobs that are any more glamorous than that of a coach tour driver's. In the turn around it is the cabin crew that hoover the plane, pick up the sweet wrappers and make things good for the next horde of passengers. There are no specific cleaners to do the job whilst the cabin crew waltz off to enjoy a well earned break. I quite like this new reality, I also liked travel in the days of Pan Am and TWA when planes had a jet-set feel to them. However, regardless of the staff and what they have to do, running an airline is no easy way to make money and you cannot blame the unions when it doesn't work out.