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Comment by cromka | Hacker News Reader

And then you have RyanAir in Europe with no credit card or loyalty program offerings. They did have a loyalty subscription program, but it cost more than it generated.

Best not to generalize.

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When I lived in europe, RyanAir made most of it's money in the terminal. This is why every RyanAir terminal has a maze like exit from security (ikea-esque) before you get to the actual terminal.

The RyanAir CEO was even quoted that he expected some tickets to be come "zero-fare" Link: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/nov/22/ryanair-fli...

The point stands, airlines don't make money on flights. Flights are loss leaders.

tbf, Ryanair generates a third of its revenues from other ancillary offerings (including kickbacks from insurers and car hire firms as well as its legendary fines and fees) so it does fit the general pattern of it being unprofitable to simply sell tickets in competitive markets...

Those other companies do too So it's not distorting the competition IMO. If none of them had kickbacks then the prices would be overall higher but people would still fly because most of us don't just fly for the hell of it but because we have places to go.

Nobody claimed it was distorting the competition.

I pointed out the simple fact that Ryanair can't be considered a counterexample to airlines tending not to make money on flights since it relies on upsells to make a profit.

And Ryanair is the largest airline in Europe! And one of the largest in the world.

And it got that way mostly be focusing on cheap flights rather than other nonsense.

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