> meaning that flights are often longer

Got any sources?

I found:

Europe average flight length (2024): 1,157km [0]

USA average flight length (I could only find old data, 2005): 1,110km [1] (even if we index this up based on upward trends, maybe another 150km, that doesn't seem a huge difference to me?)

> The US is big

And Europe is big too. It's actually a bit bigger than the USA by land size.

Btw, IAG is a global airline group. Only ~32% of IAGs revenue is intra-Europe and domestic. Another data point: Turkish Airlines (very long-haul focused airline) 2025 net income margin was 12.1% in 2025.

I'm not sure your explanation is sufficient. I don't see the exception in the USA? I am certainly willing to accept there are other differences and challenges in the USA, but I don't think it's been presented yet in this discussion.

And remember the original claim was "Airlines are not great business. Margins are not great"

EDIT: I found https://www.airportroutes.com/airlines/NKS/ which does highlight that Spirit flew lengths longer compared to Europe's average, at 1,577 km - but then using the same source for Ryanair https://www.airportroutes.com/airlines/RYR/ it's 1,456km, so again, not a huge difference. So comparing 2 seemingly very similar airlines, the European one has both managed to be profitable and not go bankrupt...

[0] https://www.eurocontrol.int/publication/eurocontrol-data-sna...

[1] https://www.hsdl.org/c/view?docid=25985

Spirit Airlines Is Winding Down All Operations