The trick is, of course, knowing when to buy and when to sell. Those who bought AMR @ $1.52/ share in '03 and sold for $37.23 in '07 made 24.5 times their original money making many multi-millionaires out of ordinary pilots in just 4 years. (I wasn't one of them) But yes, airlines are generally very poor-performing stocks. I like to joke I work for a large non-profit conglomerate.