US airlines award big pay rises amid record profits
New labour contracts seen adding at least US$1.35b to operating costs of the four biggest US carriers this year
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Dallas
US airlines are posting record profits, awarding hefty pay rises and winning over long-time sceptics such as Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The missing ingredient: proof that the industry can weather a downturn.
Previous airline booms were followed by busts that eventually forced all the biggest full-service airlines into bankruptcy. The difference this time is an eight-year era of mergers that stabilised the industry by shrinking the number of major US carriers to four from nine. Adding to that is a profit-boosting, 56 per cent drop in the price of jet fuel since early 2014.
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