Updated: A Graphical Representation of the U.S. Airline Industry since Deregulation in 1975 (and Warren Buffett stops by)

“As of 1992, the money that had been made since the dawn of aviation by all of this country’s airline companies was zero. Absolutely zero.”

 "If I’d been at Kitty Hawk in 1903 when Orville Wright took off, I would have shot him down. Karl Marx couldn’t have done as much damage to capitalists as Orville did."

-Warren E. Buffet on the December 17, 2003 centennial anniversary of the Wright brothers’ historic flight.

As I said three years ago the quote may be apocryphal but it sounds like Warren.

UPDATE: I found the exact quote, it was in the November 22, 1999 Fortune article that I had used for another quote:

Move on to failures of airlines. Here’s a list of 129 airlines that in the past 20 years filed for bankruptcy. Continental was smart enough to make that list twice. As of 1992, in fact--though the picture would have improved since then--the money that had been made since the dawn of aviation by all of this country’s airline companies was zero.

Absolutely zero.


I like to think that if I’d been at Kitty Hawk in 1903 when Orville Wright took off, I would have been farsighted enough, and public-spirited enough--I owed this to future capitalists--to shoot him down. I mean, Karl Marx couldn’t have done as much damage to capitalists as Orville did.

I owe someone a hat tip on the NYT graphic. If it was yours drop us a line.
(click to enlarge)

Original