[nickff]

The airline industry is famously unprofitable; it is commonly said that on net, the sum total of airlines have made $0 over the course of their history. It is true that there are periods where they do make a profit, but these periods are offset by times when they make massive losses (such as during COVID, after the Great Recession, and after 9/11).

[dkjaudyeqooe]

Globally, big airlines seem to be doing fine:

https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/most-profitable-airlines

I think there are lots of airlines that are propped up by governments that lose money leading to the meme you're quoting. Many industries were affected by the events you quoted, those sorts of things aren't specific to airlines.

[nickff]

There are two issues with doing a static analysis on something like this:

1) Survivorship Bias: you are only looking at airlines that currently exist, and ignoring ones that have gone out of business.

2) Recency Bias: you're examining them at a time of relative prosperity and stability, ignoring their pasts.