isn't the point of "amortizing" (sorry not sure about the english word) exactly that of putting the money used to build a plant off the books for years?
I think GP's point is that if in the next period they don't get more reservations than they would be in the red, so the current black is to be considered with a pinch of salt.
There are roughly two ways to do accounting. One: you count when cash enters your bank account and when cash leaves your bank account. This is cash accounting and it measures cashflow. This is important to track because if you run out of cash, you're pretty boned.
The other way is more sophisticated. I think this is called accrual accounting. With accrual accounting, if I sell you a widget, I count the expense of the widget and the revenue from selling the widget at the same time and trust that the cash flow will work out in the long run. So it doesn't matter if you pay me first and then next year I ship you the widget, or if I ship you the widget today and then you pay me, or if I buy the parts for the widget on credit and pay my supplier after I sell the widget, because as soon as I account for the revenue from the widget, I simultaneously have to account for the expenses as well. This is more honest than cash accounting in the sense that it's harder to game, but it's less honest in the sense that I have to keep track of more accounting fictions. Amortization is one of these accounting fictions.
You need to do both types of accounting at the same time. They just solve different problems. Accrual accounting makes sure things will work out profitably in the long run and cash accounting makes sure you won't run out of money before then. What you don't do is mix and match approaches. If you take in a bunch of cash now and then spend it on a manufacturing plant, you can't say, "well, we're amortizing that" because amortization or not, you don't have the cash anymore.
(Disclaimer: I am not an accountant. In college, I took two classes in accounting, in the summer of 2004. I got a B and an A. The one I got a B in was a 7 AM class and I usually slept in instead of bothering to go when there wasn't a test. I did have the textbook for the class, so I was able to read it at my leisure, though I focused a lot more on my infinitely more interesting class on "Science Fiction and Philosophy". It was a summer class, and there were six tests, one per week, and my grade was based on those six tests. Before test #6, I calculated that I would get a B if I scored anywhere between 50% and 95%, so I didn't study very hard. Fortunately, the tests mostly covered various extremely tedious details, not the general principles outlined above. I believe I got an A in "Science Fiction and Philosophy".)
I think GP's point is that if in the next period they don't get more reservations than they would be in the red, so the current black is to be considered with a pinch of salt.