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bythepowerofboobs t1_j29fmrz wrote

Reply to comment by LiberalAspergers in Why the F is Southwest mooning when the entire market is down? They literally lost like 2 billion dollars or more in the past 8 days. by OhNoNoNoAveMaria

Southwest is historically extremely profitable, and they will continue to be.

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LiberalAspergers t1_j29gifk wrote

Long run, looks like their return on Capital is around 5.5%. That is not extremely profitable by any standards other than the. airline industry. It is AMAZING for an airline, but that is kind of like getting the best grades in a special education class.

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bythepowerofboobs t1_j29hf6h wrote

We have different standards I guess. Averaging ~15 billion EBITDA is pretty fucking amazing to me no matter what industry it is.

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LiberalAspergers t1_j29i6oi wrote

Depends how much capital you use to make those profits.

Same as investing. Making an annual return of 100,000 is amazing if.you only have 400,000 in capital. If you have 40,000,000 in capital it is terrible.

And given that interest and depreciation are two of the major expenses airlines face, EIBTDA is a terrible.measure for that industry. But, good luck.

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