Airline ancillary revenue from tours and activities in 2026: how it works
Airline ancillary revenue from tours and activities is the line most airlines haven't opened yet, and the rest of the ancillary business is growing fast around it. In October, Delta said 61% of its third-quarter revenue came from premium, loyalty and other streams beyond the main-cabin fare, with American Express on track to pay it more than $9 billion this year. Travelers spend $271 billion a year on tours, activities and attractions, and very little of it runs through the airline that flew them there. This is how it works: where the revenue comes from, where an airline sells it, and who gets paid.
What counts as ancillary revenue for an airline?
Everything an airline earns beyond the fare. The first wave was unbundling: bags, seat selection, boarding order, food. The second was the loyalty program and the co-branded card. The third is third-party ancillaries, products another company delivers and the airline sells in its own brand for a share. Hotels and cars came first. Tours and activities are next, and they are the one most airlines haven't added yet.
What's new in airline ancillary revenue in 2026?
Delta said on October 9 that 61% of its third-quarter revenue came from premium, loyalty and other streams beyond the main-cabin fare, with loyalty revenue up 18% and American Express on track to pay it more than $9 billion this year. United reported loyalty revenue up 17% on October 20. In Asia, IndiGo told investors on October 29 that ancillary revenue per passenger rose from about INR 525 to INR 590 in the September quarter, with room to grow.
IdeaWorksCompany's 2026 yearbook, published in September, found ancillary revenue grew 13.4% across 58 airlines against 7.2% for total revenue, and 30 airlines now earn at least $1 billion a year from it. Its latest worldwide estimate is $157 billion. CAPA's October analysis describes the next stage as turning the whole journey into a retail platform.
The connection is arriving at the same time. In October, American said it will put Starlink on every mainline jet, more than 1,000 aircraft, starting in early 2027. United said Starlink now runs on nearly half its daily flights, with more than 250,000 customers a day on an equipped aircraft. easyJet announced onboard wifi for the first time, Starlink across a fleet of more than 350 aircraft from the first half of 2027, and named destination information, like local transport and tourism, among the things passengers can look up. Singapore Airlines starts its Starlink rollout on the A350 and A380 in the first quarter of 2027.
More passengers will spend the whole flight connected, and the airline decides what they see when they do.
How can an airline increase ancillary revenue?
Four levers, in roughly the order airlines have pulled them.
- Price the ancillaries you already sell better.
- Sell them earlier and in more places, from booking through the app to the gate.
- Grow the loyalty program and the card.
- Add a line you don't deliver yourself.
The first three are mature at most carriers. The fourth is where a new line comes from. With tours and activities the airline already has what the seller needs most: the passenger's dates, the destination and their attention. The product itself is delivered by someone else.
Why are tours and activities different from bags and seats?
Bags and seats are the airline's own product, so every sale carries its own cost. A tour is delivered by the operator at the destination. The airline carries no inventory, no staff and no cost of goods.
The market is open, too. Travelers spent $271 billion on tours, activities and attractions in 2025, projected to reach $342 billion in 2029, and only a third of it is booked online, against 64% for travel overall (Arival and Phocuswright). Nobody owns the passenger's planning yet.
Why is this ancillary line still open?
There really hasn't been anything like our software until now. We have a streamlined experience where we know we have a much more engaged audience, and that engaged, captive audience is the perfect audience to be selling these things, as well as the other ancillaries that airlines already sell.
It's the perfect package: the best way to plan your vacation and cover everything in one checkout, including the feeling of knowing what you're doing when you get there and having that itinerary ready to go.
Mike Melichar, Co-Founder & CEO
When do passengers decide what to do at the destination?
Late. Four data sets across fifteen years say the same thing.
- Google found that 48% of experience bookings happen after travelers arrive at their destination.
- Arival's survey of U.S. travelers at the end of 2025 had 63% of tours booked inside a week of taking them, and 17% on the day.
- In 2017, Phocuswright put 53% of activity bookings inside a week and 38% inside two days.
- Booking data from the reservation system Rezgo showed the same in 2010: 52% inside a week of travel.
The passenger is still deciding at boarding, and the airline is the last brand they see before they land.
What do passengers do with good in-flight wifi?
What are these people doing when they're on Starlink? They're watching videos about the places they're going to. They're catching up on emails at work so they can just enjoy their vacation. There's a lot people do that isn't watching the same 12 movies in the back of a 777 seat-rest tablet.
When you have that good of internet in service, you start looking at: well, what do I do?
Mike Melichar, Co-Founder & CEO
That question is the moment. A planner that opens from the portal answers it, and it takes in what passengers find on their own: anything they save from the web goes into the same plan. It meets people where they are and how they already plan.
Who decides what sits on the wifi portal?
The airline. The connectivity provider supplies the link; the airline decides what passengers see when they connect and which partners sit on the portal.
I observed that the airlines themselves are the ones that dictate the experience in flight, wholly.
Mike Melichar, Co-Founder & CEO
That is why the planner runs in the passenger's browser on any connection, with nothing installed on the aircraft. For how the connection itself gets paid for, see how airlines make money from in-flight wifi.
Where in the journey does the airline sell tours and activities?
In three places, all the airline's own.
- The booking confirmation and the pre-trip email, when the trip is real and the dates are set.
- The airline's app, where the passenger already checks in and picks a seat.
- The in-flight wifi portal, with hours in the seat.
The same planner and the same plan run in all three, so a passenger who starts at home can finish in the air.
Which airlines sell tours and activities today?
TUI passengers can browse more than 1,500 TUI Musement experiences on 59 aircraft and get a payment link by email after landing. airBaltic's Skynet portal on Starlink shows attractions from GetYourGuide. Jet2, which topped IdeaWorksCompany's 2025 ranking for ancillary revenue per passenger at $100.73, launched Jet2experiences with Musement in February 2026. easyJet sells Musement experiences on its site and will connect its fleet with Starlink from 2027. The common shape is a catalog: a list of experiences to browse, often finished in another brand or after landing.
Why does a planner earn more than a marketplace tile?
A tile hands the passenger a list and sends them somewhere else to buy. A planner is something they want to use. They pick what they love, it builds the days around real dates and times, and one checkout covers everything, in the airline's brand from the first swipe to the confirmation. The plan and the booking land in the airline's CRM, so the loyalty team sees what members do at the destination.
I'm all for doing it the Anthony Bourdain way, getting lost in a new city where you don't speak the language and finding some of the best food. But sometimes you just want to walk a path that's been taken a few times, in a way that's uniquely you, so it's not the same worn-down route every other tourist takes.
Mike Melichar, Co-Founder & CEO
Who gets the money?
The passenger pays once, at checkout. Our booking partner is the merchant of record: they process the payment and handle every refund and support request, so the airline's call center never takes a tour question. The operator delivers the tour. The airline earns on every booking made in its brand, and the terms are set with each airline on a call.
What does the airline have to do?
Add a banner or tile to the portal, the app or the email. There is no app release and nothing to install on the aircraft. The planner runs in the passenger's browser in the airline's name, logo and colors.
What should an airline measure?
- Bookings per thousand passengers, by route.
- Share of passengers who open the planner.
- Share who save a plan.
- Repeat use on the next trip.
Those four numbers say whether the line deserves more routes and more aircraft.
Who is using it?
We're choosing our first airline partners now, and the first airlines get terms we won't offer again. Try the demo at demo.triptimize.app, then book a call.
Sources
- Delta Air Lines, September quarter 2026 financial results, October 9, 2026 (SEC filing) Link
- United Airlines Holdings, third-quarter 2026 results, October 20, 2026 (SEC filing) Link
- IdeaWorksCompany, "Mission Possible: Airlines Earn Record Ancillary Revenue While Consumers Enjoy Lower Fares", November 18, 2025 Link
- IdeaWorksCompany, 2026 SeatMaps.com Yearbook of Ancillary Revenue, September 8, 2026 Link
- CAPA Centre for Aviation, "Ancillary revenue is no longer ancillary to the airline business", October 2, 2026 Link
- PhocusWire, airline ancillary revenue grows twice as fast as overall revenue (2026 yearbook figures by airline) Link
- American Airlines newsroom, Starlink on every mainline jet, October 8, 2026 Link
- United Airlines newsroom, Starlink on nearly half its daily flights, October 15, 2026 Link
- easyJet newsroom, connectivity onboard for the first time with Starlink, October 26, 2026 Link
- Future Travel Experience, Singapore Airlines partners with Starlink, May 21, 2026 Link
- IndiGo second-quarter FY2027 earnings call, transcript via Investing.com, October 29, 2026 Link
- Arival and Phocuswright, "The Outlook for Travel Experiences 2019 to 2029", February 2026 ($271 billion is the 2025 figure) Link
- Phocuswright, "Tours and activities are outgrowing travel overall", July 2026, with the Arival survey of U.S. and European travelers, fourth quarter 2025 Link
- Google, Think with Google, travel experience marketing (48% of experience bookings after arrival)
- TrekkSoft, citing Phocuswright, last-minute booking trends for tours and activities, 2017 Link
- PhocusWire, Rezgo booking data on in-destination bookings, 2010 Link
- TUI Group newsroom, digital in-flight experience with TUI Musement Link
- Future Travel Experience, airBaltic Skynet on Starlink, March 25, 2026 Link
- airBaltic, partner services (GetYourGuide for tours and activities) Link
- Jet2 plc, Jet2 partners with Musement, February 2026 Link
- easyJet newsroom, partnership with Musement Link