The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released the findings of a survey on payment processing costs.
In 2025, airlines worldwide incurred USD 24.5 billion in payment costs to process USD 1.05 trillion in sales. This represented an increase of 10.4% compared with 2023, substantially outpacing the 7.7% growth in travel sales over the same period, from USD 977 billion. The breakdown comprised USD 20.7 billion (84.5% of the total) in direct costs per transaction, including payment fees; USD 2.9 billion (11.8%) in operational costs, including various payment systems, cash-flow delays, personnel and compliance; and USD 900 million (3.7%) in losses from fraud and uncollected payments.
The average cost per transaction was USD 5 per passenger. IATA forecasts airline net profit in 2026 at USD 4.50 per passenger, meaning payment costs exceed this amount.
By payment method, cards had the highest cost per transaction, with an average fee of 2.53%, above the overall average of 1.97%. The lowest-cost method had a fee of 0.01%.
Sandrine Le Borgne, IATA’s Acting Director General and CFO, commented: “The airline industry is known for being highly competitive, capital-intensive and low-margin. It is not sustainable for payment transaction costs to grow faster than industry revenues.”
As part of its efforts to improve efficiency, IATA cited the adoption of lower-cost payment methods. It operates IATA Pay, which enables airline tickets to be purchased using local instant payment methods, across 38 payment schemes in 34 countries. It also provides the IATA Financial Gateway platform, which supports more than 300 payment methods in over 170 countries. Other initiatives include Transparency In Payments, which allows airlines to set payment policies within IATA’s Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP); efforts to improve payment efficiency for corporate travel; and the development of a new framework, the Airline Payment Framework – Management Foundation, for airlines to evaluate payment methods.
Le Borgne said: “IATA research shows that approximately one in five ancillary service purchases is not completed because the initial payment is declined and no alternative method is offered. By increasing the number of payment options, airlines may be able to recover some of this lost revenue.”
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