An airline industry
offers services for traveling passengers and freight.
Airlines use airplanes to supply and may
form partnerships or alliances with other airlines. Usually,
companies will be recognized with an authentic operating
certificate or license issued by a respective aviation body.
Airlines might vary in size, from
small domestic airlines to full-service international airlines. They do offer
services which can be categorized as being local, inter-continental, domestic,
regional, or international, and will be operating as a scheduled services
or charters. One of the largest airlines currently
is American Airlines Group.
Airline industry as a whole has made
a cumulative loss during its 100-year history, which is inclusive of subsidies
for aircraft development and airport construction.
On contrary, there is an argument that positive
externalities, includes higher growth due to globalization, offset the
microeconomic losses and defend government intervention. A milestone, high
level of government intervention in the airline industry can be seen as part of
a wider political consensus on strategic forms of transport, such
as highways and railways, both of which receive public funding
in most parts of the world. Although many countries continue to operate
state-owned or private airlines, Most of the large airlines today are privately
owned and governed by microeconomic principles to maximize shareholder profit.
In July 2016, the total airline
capacity was 181.1 billion Available Seat Kilometers (+6.9% compared
to July 2015): 57.6bn in Asia-Pacific, 47.7bn in Europe, 46.2bn in North
America, 12.2bn in Middle East, 12.0bn in Latin America and 5.4bn in Africa.
