Not that this other pg doesn't play pretty loose with the facts when it suits him, but I think it's clear he's not talking about literal bookkeeping "profit," b

Not that this other pg doesn't play pretty loose with the facts when it suits him, but I think it's clear he's not talking about literal bookkeeping "profit," but what the airline has left after making all payments besides pilots' salary. I.e., if you were the pilots' union, after examining the books and holding other parties as fixed, this is the pile of money that is going to be divided between you and the shareholders. Airline profit margins are around 1% of revenue, BTW. (And there's always a question of who captures the surplus from trade.) Airlines and their unions have a very rough relationship. In a prior life I helped a client who was managing the firewall for an airline union. They were constantly under serious attack, and asking me how they could make their attackers' lives miserable.