ajamieson (and others):
Actually both sides could be right. The costs ajamieson describes are one-off costs that occur when a route is first started. Conventional accounting then recovers these costs over subsequent years. So on day-to-day costs and revenues the routes could now be doing alright, but to the accountants taking the overall view and recharging these "stratospheric" costs it is making a loss.
This is where management has to face the beancounters and decide what to do. On the one hand it appears ludicrous to abandon a profitable route where the start up costs are now history, on the other hand the money borrowed to cover the start up costs is eating away interest and has to be paid back somehow.
Remember, at the end of the day it's the management that employs the beanies, not the other way round!