Checked baggage, in-flight seat and in-flight snacks: the monstrous takings of Ryanair and easyjet

In English they are called 'ancillaries' or 'ancillary revenue'. These are the revenues of an airline that are not derived directly from its core business, which is to transport passengers from one place to another in exchange for payment of a ticket. Over the years, first in the U.S. and then also in Europe and the rest of the world, they have grown enormously, as far as variety and as far as the weight they now have in the budgets of all airlines.

To wit, these are the receipts associated with 'options' that passengers choose to avail themselves of to make their travel easier and more comfortable such as the choice of seat on board, the shipping of checked baggage, the purchase of snacks, drinks or various items during the flight. But also, in the case of some low-costs, the fare imposed for Carry on board a trolley to put in the overhead compartments. If, of course, all this is not already included in the fare purchased by the traveler.

Where the carrier has a part of its business dedicated to vacations, with airline + hotel packages offered for sale to its customers (this is the case, for example, with British Airways and easyjet, to give two examples in Europe), these revenues are also referred to as 'ancillary,' as are frequent flyer program miles purchased by travelers.

Top 10 highest grossers in the world

In short, the list is very long. And the net amount of this 'ancillary revenue' is in many cases enormous, both in absolute terms and when compared to the total revenue of an airline. According to data collected in the CarTrawler Yearbook of Ancillary Revenue, in 2022 the airline that grossed the most in this special branch of the business was American Delta Airlines with $7 billion 987 million.

The Atlanta-based giant narrowly outpaced its two biggest competitors in the U.S. market, United Airlines, which grossed $7 billion 881 million, and American Airlines, which grossed $7 billion 711 million. The Top 10 in this particular ranking is made up almost entirely of North American companies (There are also Southwest Airlines, Spirit, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and Air Canada).

The only two intruders who are not stars and stripes are the two major European low-cost airlines: Ryanair, which ranks fifth with ancillary revenues of $4 billion and easyjet, which ranks seventh with $2 billion $353 million. For both European air transport giants, the 2022 figure was up sharply from the 2021 figure of 57% and 273% respectively.

A mountain of money compared to total sales

Ryanair and easyjet are also in the global top 10 when considering the ratio of ancillary revenues to total airline revenues: in this case, the ranking is led, not surprisingly, by the U.S. ultra low-cost Spirit, with two other ultra low-costs, also stars and stripes, behind it: Frontier and Allegiant Air. For Spirit, ancillaries accounted for 51.5% of total revenue in 2022, while for Frontier and Allegiant they counted for 50.8% and 48.9% respectively.

Ryanair and easyjet are a long way from those numbers: for the former, ancillaries accounted for 35.7% of 2022 revenue, for the latter, 33.9. But while for the low-cost Irish company the figure reveals a decline from that of 2021 (-9.1 percentage points), for the British competitor it represents a growth of 2.4 percentage points

 

Another European airline that flies to Italy appears in this top 10 (in fourth place, just behind Spirit, Frontier, and Allegiant): it is the Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air, which in 2022 garnered 48% of its revenue through pre-assignment of seats on board, boarding checked baggage, selling snacks and drinks on board, and so on.

The figure that may perhaps be of interest to the passenger is how much, in cash, each of these companies manages to squeeze out of him. Ryanair and easyjet (to the happiness of their passengers, one would say) are not in this third top 10. And the only European one, which also flies to Italy, albeit with passengers who are almost all from the UK, is Britain's Jet2.com, which last year managed to pull a whopping $84.72 in ancillaries out of each of its passengers' pockets. But you know, the British can't go without beer even in the clouds.