Editing Airline (section)

==Trends==
[[File:World-airline-routemap-2024.png|thumb|Map of scheduled airline traffic in 2024]]
[[File:011 Aircraft of various airlines together at Narita Airport, Japan. Swiss Air Lines, United Airlines, Thai Airways.JPG|thumb|Aircraft of various airlines parked side by side at [[Narita International Airport|Tokyo Narita Airport]], [[Japan]]]]

The pattern of ownership has been privatized since the mid-1980s, that is, the ownership has gradually changed from governments to private and individual sectors or organizations. This occurs as regulators permit greater freedom and non-government ownership, in steps that are usually decades apart. This pattern is not seen for all airlines in all regions.<ref>{{cite web|title=List of Government-owned and Privatized Airlines (unofficial preliminary compilation) |publisher = [[International Civil Aviation Organization|ICAO]] |url = https://www.icao.int/sustainability/Documents/PrivatizedAirlines.pdf|date = 4 July 2008|url-status = live|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150607104908/https://www.icao.int/sustainability/Documents/PrivatizedAirlines.pdf|archive-date = 7 June 2015}}</ref> Many major airlines operating between the 1940s and 1980s were government-owned or government-established. However, most airlines from the earliest days of air travel in the 1920s and 1930s were personal businesses.<ref name=":5" />

Growth rates are not consistent in all regions, but countries with a deregulated airline industry have more competition and greater pricing freedom. This results in lower fares and sometimes dramatic spurts in traffic growth. The U.S., Australia, Canada, [[Japan]], [[Brazil]], [[India]] and other markets exhibit this trend. The industry has been observed to be cyclical in its financial performance. Four or five years of poor earnings precede five or six years of improvement. But profitability even in the good years is generally low, in the range of 2–3% net profit after interest and tax. In times of profit, airlines lease new generations of airplanes and upgrade services in response to higher demand. Since 1980, the industry has not earned back the cost of capital during the best of times. Conversely, in bad times losses can be dramatically worse. [[Warren Buffett]] in 1999 said "the money that had been made since the dawn of aviation by all of this country's airline companies was zero. Absolutely zero."<ref>{{cite web|title=Buffett's spot-on advice|url=http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/buffetts-spot-on-advice/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100307173937/http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/buffetts-spot-on-advice/|archive-date=7 March 2010|access-date=20 October 2008|publisher=Money Sense}}</ref>

As in many mature industries, consolidation is a trend. Airline groupings may consist of limited bilateral partnerships, long-term, multi-faceted alliances between carriers, equity arrangements, [[Mergers and acquisitions|mergers]], or [[takeover]]s.<ref name=":6">{{Citation |last=Kumar |first=B. Rajesh |title=Mergers and Acquisitions in the Airline Industry |date=2012 |work=Mega Mergers and Acquisitions: Case Studies from Key Industries |pages=226–230 |editor-last=Kumar |editor-first=B. Rajesh |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1057/9781137005908_11 |isbn=978-1-137-00590-8}}</ref> Since governments often restrict ownership and merger between companies in different countries, most consolidation takes place within a country. In the U.S., over 200 airlines have merged, been taken over, or gone out of business since the [[Airline Deregulation Act]] in 1978. Many international airline managers are lobbying their governments to permit greater consolidation to achieve higher economy and efficiency.{{Citation needed|date=January 2020}}