Over the past two months, the financial state of the commercial airline industry has changed rapidly. At the start of the year, airlines were boasting some of the best financial performance on record, and the signs that further growth was on the horizon only continued to build. Statistically, the commercial aviation industry, as defined by a value-weighted index of airline stocks created by Yahoo Finance, outperformed the broader S&P 500 Index over a six-year investment horizon by around 50%.