[pcurve]

Yup. You can actually buy several European airlines with that kind of money.

For example, you can buy KLM Air france for less than $3B.

It is a profitable business that does $30B in sales and $1B in profit. (and has been profitable since for the past 4-5 years)

[Jabbles]

It has $40B in liabilities.

[PDF] https://www.airfranceklm.com/sites/default/files/2026-02/202...

[nikcub]

Airlines are down there amongst cinema chains and video game retail stores in terms of being terrible businesses

[polski-g]

Want to know the easiest way to become a millionaire?

First, become a billionaire. Then, start an airline.

[hayd]

"$30B in sales and $1B in profit."

This margin seems terrible.

[oscarcp]

4% seems reasonable, it's pretty much standard across the board in Europe (median sits around 6% if I recall correctly), not many companies can pull 10% profit. For example in Spain, major conglomerates like INDITEX have a 11%, Iberdrola has a 10%. We also don't use the same metrics and parameters as the US for profit, so the values are skewed.

That said, certain sectors like software (as in custom enterprise grade software dev) pull revenues that are much much higher sitting around 35%, but it's not that common.