Capitalism is about free trade. Airlines grew to their size based on a certain economic condition (free travel between nations). Pulling that out from under them resulted in massive loss of income.

It's not about entitled or not. It's about the fact government action directly harmed them, whether or not justified.

so the market conditions changed.

They didn't. Authoritarian intervention happened.

that assesment hinges on the view if the pandemic neccesitated/warranted lockdowns.

"Capitalism is about free trade."

No, it's not.

Way to be pedantic. You're right, strictly speaking it's about investing capital (in the economic sense) in order to profit from it. In practice it's all about reducing barriers to trade whether within or outside a country since every other economic system aims to limit some aspect of economic freedom as 'capitalism' is basically just the natural result of barrier-free trade.