Ancillary revenue is no longer ancillary to the airline business

Airline ancillary revenue has crossed a threshold. The latest SeatMaps.com 2026 Yearbook of Ancillary Revenue by IdeaWorksCompany, now in its 19th edition, shows that ancillary revenue among 58 comparable airlines increased by 13.4% in 2025, almost twice the 7.2% growth in total revenue.

On a per-passenger basis, the divergence is even more striking: ancillary revenue increased 10.7%, compared with just 3.3% for all other revenue.

This is no longer simply the story of low-cost carriers charging for bags and seats. Thirty airlines generated at least USD1 billion of ancillary revenue in 2025, while frequent flyer programmes have become major financial businesses in their own right. The four largest US airlines generated USD27.9 billion from loyalty programmes alone.

The significance for aviation is broader. Airlines are progressively separating the price of transportation from the value of the wider travel proposition, using fares, branded products, seats, baggage, loyalty, payments, holidays and other services as distinct commercial levers.

That creates more revenue opportunity, but also a harder strategic problem: the most successful ancillary strategies depend on understanding what passengers will pay for, rather than simply finding another fee to impose.

The next stage will be less about adding ancillaries and more about turning the entire journey into a retail platform.