It is said that if you want to make a small fortune; start with a large fortune, then open an airline !
Given that the maintenance costs of aircraft are so high, it amazes me that any airline survives - especially with Low Cost fares.
Maybe it is much easier to start an airline than keep it going profitably? i.e. perhaps there are lots of tax breaks and other financial mechanisms available to someone starting an airline, but they become unavailable after the first year or whatever. Given the thousands of people employed by an airport and the airlines, maybe governments make it very easy to start an airline.
Maybe there is a group of big money men and their CEOs, who go around starting airlines, take a nice healthy payout, then move on, knowing that the airline will fail, owing to huge maintenance costs and competition creating unsustainable financial pressures. Only very few airlines manage to navigate through that and survive.