Business | Flight risk

From social-media stars to the Mexican army, everyone wants to run an airline

Exotic new airlines are a sign of an industry in full recovery

The yellow tailfins of two Monarch Airlines aircraft, alongside the blue tailfin of a Thomson Holidays plane — Image: Getty Images

Aug 31st 2023

There are two measures of the recovery of the airline industry to its pre-covid altitude. First, data show that the 1.1bn seats on sale worldwide in July and August were only a whisker below levels in 2019. Seasoned observers point to a second, more subjective gauge: a slew of announcements of new or resurrected airlines with unlikely owners, dubious business models or questionably niche routes. Entrepreneurs are again being drawn to an industry that has long offered the glamour and excitement that a moth sees in a flame.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Flight risk”