[tim333]

The airline industry seems to work everywhere in the world regardless of the subsidy situation so I doubt it'd fail without support. A lot of subsidies seem to come from regions competing with each other eg. subsidise Boeing so the jobs don't move to Airbus/Europe, expand London airports so they don't switch to Paris etc.

[veqq]

Airlines are subsidized all around the world, and incinerate money everywhere. Very few airlines are profitable over even short periods. In the US, Southwest is the only one whose shareholder equity's grown in the last 5, 10, 20 or how many years you want.