> "Flights don't make money. Airlines actually make all of their money through loyalty programs and credit card payments."

If that's the case then how RyanAir survived and is thriving?

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ggm 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It isn't the case. It's a simplistic gloss on a complex finance outcome.

Some flights make money.

Some flights lose money.

Some finance structures make money while looking like losses to acrue tax benefits for other activities.

Sometimes the money is being made by holding companies not operating companies. Sometimes the assets are worth more as spares than operating.

All companies are complex. I do not think "flights don't make money" is true for all airlines, all flights.

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bombcar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because people take "airline X makes $50k profit, and makes $55k off of the credit card, so therefore it makes all money from credit cards" which is true from a certain accounting point of view, and also entirely false, in that it's all accounting tricks and the credit card would be worthless without an airline.

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addandsubtract 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not to mention that loyalty programs and credit card bonuses don't exist in Europe.

	▲	Petersipoi 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This isn't true. European airlines do have loyalty programs with "miles". Air France, British Airways, Finnair, Turkish Airlines, just to name a few, all have miles programs. They just aren't tied to credit cards because the EU caps interchange fees to 0.3%, so there simply isn't enough money to have a meaningful credit card point system.

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roncesvalles 40 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Because it's nonsense. It's from some YouTube video that went viral a few years ago.