If you invest in industries where there are monopolies or two major competitors, eventually all the roads lead to Rome. That saying is from the Roman Empire when Rome was the center of dominant empire of the Mediterranean Sea and the Roman Empire used infrastructure or building of roads to keep the people busy. (in China they built a wall which used thousands of people to work on, to keep the Mongols out). In the case of Rome, roads were built across Italy to foster faster communications at the end of the roads was Rome, over time the expression all roads lead to Rome came into being. In the passenger airline business, there are 2 companies competing against each other Boeing and Airbus. While there are other planes, the dominant players are Boeing and Airbus.

In an article by Valerie Insinna, Padraic Halphin and Tim Hepher of Reuters, the largest low-cost carrier in Europe is Ireland’s Ryanair and they signed a deal to buy 300 Boeing jets. For the past 18 months, Ryanair and Boeing have been having a public feud.

As a low cost provider of flights, some flights are less expensive than driving, Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary has a very sharp pencil when buying planes. Ryanair flew 168 million passengers and expects to fly 300 million by 2034.

Ryanair uses Boeing 737s for its mainline fleet and is one of Boeing’s largest customers with more than 600 planes in its fleet or on order. The new order is for 737 Max 10 which seats 230 people.

In the early 1990’s and 2000’s, the country with the biggest increase in planes was China, in the 2020’s it is India. Air India recently put in a order for 500 Boeings.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, in all industries there tends to be a market leader and others fill in the gaps. If you can invest in an industry which has a long standing 2 or 3 companies dominating the market, eventually the biggest customers must come to them. In an ideal world, the manufacturers and buyers have a very good relationship as the manufacturer continually tries to accommodate the needs of the major buyers, but reality is reality and sometimes buyers and manufacturers have public spats. In the end, they are brought together to find solutions and the public is served which allows for investors to hold onto the stock for the long term as profits turn into dividends.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.