SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA — At a conference of airline finance executives in March, Joyce Johnson-Miller, a senior managing director at Relativity Capital in New York, shared an insight from her work in aviation over 20 years. “Everybody makes money in the airline business,” she said, “except the airlines.”

Recent airliner sales illustrate her point. After several of the worst years for airlines, 2011 was very good for airplane makers. “We just had a record year,” said John Leahy, chief executive for customers at Airbus. “We had 1,600 aircraft ordered: That’s never been done in the history of aviation.”

In February, Boeing announced the largest commercial airplane order in its history, the sale of 230 narrow-body 737s, worth $224 billion, to an Indonesian carrier, Lion Air.

“The current market is broader and deeper than in recent years, with emerging markets needing airplanes for growth and legacy carriers needing airplanes for replacement,” said Doug Alder, a spokesman for Boeing.