To put it simply, some people just need to fly.

For business or leisure, lots of sky travelers simply can’t do without their airplane link to another location on our Blue Planet. The airlines that are performing the best are those which properly cater to these people — and they’re not necessarily selling the cheapest seats either, it’s actually quite the contrary.

While the budget challenged airplane travelers need to cut back on their travel expenses, the richer crowd doesn’t really bother with the extra charges related to homeland security, fuel or various other fees being piggy-backed on the ticket prices.

Planes consuming less fuel, flying with less (empty) seats and serving busier routes will help the airlines who dare to reinvent themselves to thrive, even with the bargain-hunting passenger crowd.

So who’s on top, in the 2008 list of the Global Fortune 500?

Let’s take a look at the numbers:

The profits aren’t anywhere near those from banks or pharmaceuticals but this is airline transport, an industry where the competition is fierce in the air but also from alternative transportation like high-speed trains, direct bus routes, marine shuttles, people’s cars and others.

In this particular context, turning a profit -at all- is a good sign.

Because of anticipated market pressures on the airlines, in the US and abroad, the next few months and years could prove to be bumpy for the investors who need to keep in mind that with technological breakthroughs and advances, planes will likely get more affordable to operate and as such, profits could be looking up. Also, the current price of fuel, which is at an all-time high, is expected to go down enough for the airliners to breath, at least for a short while.

Let’s see how these and other smaller airlines perform in these challenging times, in the months and years to come. Expect major and not-so-major mergers and acquisitions to reshape, yet again, this industry.

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For instance, the meals that Air France served to it’s Montreal-Paris liaison passengers were prepared by the very prestigious Ritz-Carlton, on Sherbrooke Street, in Montreal. If you’ve flown this Air France lately, you know it’s not as glitzy anymore, even if you fly in the more expensive business class.

So things have changed in the airlines business and not everyone agrees it’s for the better.

Companies like Air Canada, after being sold to American interests, lost interest in the less traveled routes, such as Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Northern Canada, thus severely penalizing smaller communities which had, under Canadian management, been decently served — globalization, privatization and shareholder greed have apparently trumped over all basic consumer satisfaction obligations.

Air travel horror stories abound.

From the fact that it’s still complicated to deal with the airlines, to buy tickets or worse, to get customer service, to the continuous stream of mismanagement imbroglios (think about the luggage nightmares), many modern day airlines have dumbed down their service to the point where it’s not even close to what their marketing promises.

For air passengers, the bread and butter of the airlines, the multiplication of fees (for everything, really), the grossly exagerated security paranoia, the flight delays (with little or no compensation to the ticket holder), the arrogant attitude from the airline personnel and the plastic-like food served on flights (when anything is served, at all) taking the plane has become a pain more than a “generally pleasant experience”.

Regular air travelers are now even attempting to opt-out of today’s air travel madness by asking their companies to buy sophisticated “always-on” teleconferencing solutions to minimize the air commuting back and forth from the various company locations — in itself, this is a good thing but still, it’s precipitated by the fact that taking the plane, for many people, is not exactly a walk in the park, at least not anymore (because it used to be much easier, more expensive but easier nonetheless).

Some airlines specialize in high-yield market niches like the C-level business travel and that’s fine but their ads feature “great service” as a plus… shouldn’t that be a bare minimum for even the “regular” flights?

While the airline industry isn’t too bothered with customer satisfaction, a study published earlier this week by American universities reveal that over 25% of the flights were late, in 2007. Accordingly, the number of traveler complaints filed was up by a whopping 60% last year, making it the worst year for air traffic, in America, ever!

Even more preoccupying is the fact that experts in airline customer satisfaction predict the current situation will continue to worsen as the price of tickets, the fees and the barriers to free movement of travelers continue to mount while, at the very same time, the service level continues to drop.

This being said, let’s keep in mind that the current state of affairs could translate into a unique opportunity for venturing airline entrepreneurs with an astute sense for customer satisfaction.

Tags: airlines, air travel, planes, customer satisfaction, passengers, great service, tickets, fees, security