Travel

Airlines, cruise lines, hotels, rental cars, carmakers, and public transit all run on expensive machinery, and the business turns on who owns it. Fleet cost, load factors, and subsidy — every Modern MBA episode on the industry, in writing.

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9 case studies

Case study — TravelWhy Asian airlines are so much betterAsian carriers deliver a service Americans barely recognize. American airlines earn more doing far less.11 min readCase study — TravelWhy almost no luxury carmaker makes moneyToyota sells 10.3 million cars a year. McLaren sells 2,137. Only two exotic makers have made that arithmetic work.16 min readCase study — TravelWhy American public transit sucksNew York's subway loses $8.5 billion a year. Tokyo turns a 15% profit on an older system carrying more people.17 min readCase study — TravelWhy car rental is such a bad businessMargins as thin as an airline, and the companies make more money selling the cars than renting them out.10 min readCase study — TravelWhy Chinese EVs are so far aheadCheaper, faster, and better equipped than anything the West sells, and cheap labor has nothing to do with it.10 min readCase study — TravelHow Uber made its losses look like profitsUber's one profitable year, 2018, came from stakes in the rivals that had beaten it, not from driving anyone anywhere.10 min readCase study — TravelHow cruise ships actually make moneyAirlines carried 4.5 billion passengers the year cruises carried 29 million — and the cruise lines earned the better margin.15 min readCase study — TravelWhy budget airlines stopped winningThe low-cost carriers say the industry is rigged. It isn't. The legacy carriers just copied the only thing they had.16 min readCase study — TravelWhy Airbnb never killed the hotel industryHilton owns under 2% of its rooms. Marriott owns 1%. Wyndham owns none. The incumbents were already platforms.8 min read