>The airlines are shafting customers while making more money than ever before. Air travel in the US is hardly a lucrative business. It's a tough racket: "Dom

>The airlines are shafting customers while making more money than ever before. Air travel in the US is hardly a lucrative business. It's a tough racket: "Domestic passenger airline operations lost $10 billion from 1979 to 1989, made profits of $5 billion in the 1990s and lost $54 billion from 2000 to 2009. To put these numbers in context, at the end of 2009, the entire book value of U.S. passenger carriers’ assets was about $163 billion and the book value of shareholder equity was $10 billion. Even at the end of 2000, after six consecutive profitable years, their assets were $159 billion and shareholder equity was $40 billion." http://freakonomics.com/2011/06/24/why-do-airlines-always-lose-money-hint-its-not-due-to-taxes-or-fuel-costs/ http://freakonomics.com/2011/06/24/why-do-airlines-always-lo...