106% rise in airline ancillary revenues

The global airline industry has seen a 106 per cent increase in revenue earned from the sale of ‘a la carte’ ancillary services since 2015, rising to US$75.6 billion in 2019. Europe – commonly referred to as the ‘birthplace’ of airline a la carte revenue – continues to lead the global charts, with carriers based across the region and Russia taking in US$31.5 billion in 2019, an increase of 122 per cent, according to research by IdeaWorksCompany and CarTrawler. However, Asia Pacific saw the biggest rise of all the regions – up 158 per cent from US$8.2 billion in 2015 to US$21.1 billion in 2019. This was followed by Africa and the Middle East, which saw an increase of 147 per cent to US$5 billion.