The airline business is a lousy one, airline industry study shows
Photo Credit: Aerial view of Manchester airport. Flickr / Airviewsphotos
Skift Take
IATA's numbers provide a fresh look at an under-performing industry, and the parameters of its proposed solutions are very predictable -- less taxation and weaker regulation.
An IATA study about airline profitability provides the bleak numbers to confirm what we already knew: Although some individual airlines are the exception to the rule, if you have money to invest, choose another industry.
The study, "Profitability and the air transport value chain," traces the slim pickings in airline industry return on capital invested, which was just 3.8% annually from 1996 to 2004, and a slightly higher 4.1% on average from 2004 to 2011.
That compares with the 7.5% return on capital annually that investors would expected to have seen when investing in businesses of similar risk outsid
