US Airlines Report $25.6 Billion Net Profit in 2015

Data from the US Department or Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports a "U.S. scheduled passenger airlines reported an after-tax net profit of $25.6 billion in 2015 up from $7.5 billion in 2014, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported ..."

Whew!

Now, for us, what does that mean?

Air Travel for me is needed to do two things:

Travel Far, and
Get there fast.

Trouble is, that there are places you can't travel to....easily.

Take for an example my interest to fly to Tobago.  And this is in the Caribbean.  We used to be able to fly direct on American from Hartford (BDL) to Puerto Rico (SJU), and from there travel to anywhere in the Caribbean. Now, you need to go through Miami (MIA) and to continue through to Trinidad, you have a 8 hour layover, only to arrive at POS by midnight.  Do you risk catching the small plane to Tobago (TAB), or do you spend the night and catch the morning flight?

The challenge for airlines is to maximize passengers to the markets they desire, in an appropriately sized plane.  Do you fly a Boeing 777 once a day between markets, or do you fly a 737 twice a day?

This is why my trip to Tobago will take 26 hours!