Revenues from complementary services, such as luggage check-in or in-flight meals, earned the main global airlines a total of 31.629 million euro in 2018, according to CarTrawler's report on revenues for complementary services performed by IdeaWorksCompany.
In this sense, while in 2007 the top ten airlines earned 1.886 million euro for these types of services, the figure has steadily risen throughout the years, reaching 31.629 million euro in 2018.
Service fees are more and more notorious in this industry as a means of offsetting lost revenues due to the lower pricing of tickets. These services include meals, seat assignments, access to exclusive lounges, or extra luggage, among others.
At the top of revenues from complementary services is American Airlines, with 7.2 million USD (6.4 million euro), followed by United with 5.8 million (5.2 million euro), and Delta with 5.5 million (4.9 million euro).
Other airlines follow closely, such as Southwest with 4 million dollars (3.5 million euro), and Ryanair, which moves up by reaching 2.8 million dollars (2.5 million euro).
In Europe and Russia, Wizz Air generated the highest percentage of revenues with 41.1%; in America, Viva Aerobus with 47.6%; and in Asia and the South Pacific, AirAsia with 29%. In the Middle East-African region, no airline enters the top ten with the highest revenues for these types of services.
Overall, the best-performing airlines based in the U.S. earned revenues of more than 15.724 million euro thanks to frequent-flyer programs, which translates into an average of 22.4 euro per passenger.
The performance of over 70 airlines that have disclosed their data will be published in September in the 2019 edition of the CarTrawler Ancillary Revenue Yearbook, followed by the Worldwide Estimate of Ancillary Revenue which includes over 180 airlines, set to be released in November of this year.