THE AVIATION INDUSTRY

The old joke in the aviation industry is: "how do you make a small fortune in this business? Start with a large fortune". Making money, as opposed to having fun with large machines, has always been difficult in aviation and continues to be today. Just how difficult can be seen in the latest report from IATA, the industry's trade organisation. Worldwide profits are expected to be US$19.7 billion, which would be a record. US$19.7 billion is a pretty large dollop of change; however, those profits will be earned on revenues of some US$743 billion, giving a margin of just 2.6%.

To set things in context, putting all of the world's airlines together, they still earn only about half as much money as Apple. As I say, it's not easy to make money in aviation.

Walter Blotscher