Whether you brought an “oversized” bag, dared to order the mixed nuts off the menu of a Ryanair flight or even selected your own seat on a low-cost carrier — we’re all familiar with one of the most painful parts of air travel: the random, often expensive fees.
It’s a universal nuisance to us, but the worth approximately $47.5 billion in revenue to airlines according to a study published Tuesday. Since 2007, airline industry consultant firm IdeaWorks and Dublin-based travel tech company CarTrawler have been analyzing the data of 73 airlines from around the world. And the revenue made off of these fees, called “ancillary revenue,” has been on a continuous upward trend.
According to USA Today, ancillary revenue consists of mostly frequent flyer points sold to partners, fees for assigned seating and commissions from hotel bookings. In a statement by Ideaworks and Cartrawler, this revenue has increased by approximately $27.6 billion in the past decade for the top 10 airlines.
So, always read the fine print when booking a flight — and make sure to beware of the airlines that charge the most extra fees.
And finally, let us all share a collective eye-roll as we go over the top 10 airlines that made the most ancillary revenue in 2017:
- United —$5.75 billion
- Delta — $5.4 billion
- American — $5.3 billion
- Southwest — $3.1 billion
- Ryanair — $2.3 billion
- Air France/KLM — $2.0 billion
- Lufthansa Group — $1.95 billion
- Alaska Air Group — $1.3 billion
- Air Canada — $1.3 billion
- easyJet — $1.28 billion
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