Role of Ancillary Revenue in Airlines

The paper describes a relatively new group of airline revenue – ancillary revenue, which is gaining more and more share in revenue structure. Particular sources of this revenue were identified and categorized according to their common features. Compared to existing research an array of this revenue was widened to include newly identified items like subsidies for operating to/from particular airports (this sort of revenue has a significant share in some low cost carriers). Special attention was drawn to the development of this revenue over time. Although the available time series was rather short it showed ancillary revenue has been growing fast in recent years. Also geographic (regional) variations in terms of ancillary revenue share in total revenue was discovered, which is consistent with the level of deregulation of particular markets.