Everyone agreed that in today’s market, there is a direct relationship between aircraft numbers and business success.
Which is true as "our" regulators have set out to destroy small business (not only in aviation, that goes across almost all business fields)
Its a byproduct of the lobbies being allowed of doing the paperworks for regulations. Which parliaments all too often put into law unchecked. (National and EU)
I was at helm of an air taxi company with 2 airplanes until 2004 and I tried hard to get the operators at my home base to get together and pool resources and things like purchases (fuel, training etc.).
Was impossible to achieve. Everyone was in a catfight with each other and the one big player we had laughed hard - they were attached to an airline and got fuel price discounts we only could dream of.
Today, 3 of the 5 operators are history, the remaining are just bigger than they were.