American Airlines may cut up to 14,000 jobs

CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THE AIRLINE BUSINESS TO ME ?

My (admittedly limited) understanding of business models in a capitalist economy is as follows = if you have a product or service that people want, and you charge the people what it costs to provide the product or service, and include in that charge a reasonable profit, you are going to do well.

So here we have all the major legacy airlines regularly going bankrupt and screwing their suppliers every few years. If they were charging what it actually costs to provide the service, and got their greedy paws out of the public's wallet (why in hell arent the airlines paying a tax on their fuel at the same rate as I pay for my aviation gasoline) then we wouldnt have this crap.

Bottom line - Looks to me like the airlines (with the exception of SOUTHWEST, which IS clearly a legit. business) need to hire some people who know how to run a LEGIT BUSINESS.

I disagree with the recent posts. My earlier post, i belive, is more accurate - simply stated - in our country airlines are NOT a legitimate business. If they were, they'd do business as legit businesses - not use the banktruptcy courts every few years (as they ALL do, with the exception, again, of SOUTHWEST, which clearly IS a legit. business) as a way to "stiff" their creditors so they can avoid fulfilling their financial responsibilities, while paying their staff outrageous salaries.

Somehow, the general public got it into its head that it has some kind of a "right" to have access to relatively inexpensive air transportation - without realizing that we taxpayers are paying thru the nose to support this "habit". Even forgetting the various govt. subsidies - how about us - the REAL flying public, who pay some five times more in fuel taxes on our aviation gasoline, then the airlines pay for their jet fuel.

Of course one cant help but be sympathetic for the employees who are going to find themselves out of work, with no real liklyhood of any other kind of employment.

But the fact remains, that until airlines in our country start charging for what it actually costs to provide the service, we are going to see this corrupt nonsence over and over again.