Since the brothers Wright flew for the first time, the aggregate of the entire airline industry never made a profit.
The market cap of airline companies is notoriously low in comparison to other industries with similar revenues. The industry is bad at capturing value.
An airline creates value X but can only capture a tiny fraction of the value, Y, as a profit. Y is lower than .5% in the airline industry. Google achieves a 20% profit margin on revenue a third of that of the entire airline industry, but still has a way higher market cap. The airline industry is near perfect competition, while Google has a monopoly. The airline industry is around because it has huge value for society.
Operating a massive fleet of huge jets is just not cheap. Gravity and weather will always be there. You are dealing with physics and physics does not care about costs.
The famous saying goes: What do you have to do to become a millionaire? Be a billionaire and start an airline.