Why would an actual airline buy your patent? Presumably you have to show it to them first for them to agree that it works and is valuable. At that point you've already handed over the valuable portion of the idea.

>Ultimately I think it's much more useful to protect entities that actually make products

I've said this before but it keeps ringing true. Entrepreneurial types in software are against patents because its not what they're good at. There's never any more substance behind the opposition than that.