They make millions of dollars every year. They can afford the training, they'd just rather have better metrics and not pay for expensive training, just to make the stock look better.
The also spend millions of dollars every year. I don't think many airline companies are actually very profitable right now. Take a look at any airline stock for the last 10 years, they were at a plateau before the pandemic, they are just at a lower plateau after.
> Full year 2023 operating revenues were a record $26.1 billion, a 9.6 percent increase, year-over-year
> Full year net income of $498 million, or $0.81 per diluted share
I'll say again... They have _plenty_ of money (record-breaking, even!) to train their pilots on the differences between two aircraft models. It's not that they can't afford it, they'd just rather not spend the money unless absolutely forced to, because a better stock price is their primary goal/motivation.
They must be bleeding somewhere because their stock is doing horribly. Record profits and yet investors are not optimistic about it for some reason. Also, I'm not sure if we are taking into account inflation? Like I recorded record income this year personally, but I don't feel very rich. If you look at their google page: