IATA: Airlines paid $24.5bn to process payments in 2025

…says costs hit 10.4%, ticket sales rise slowly at 7.7%

‎The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released new data demonstrating the rising cost burden of payment processing which shows that airlines globally incurred $24.5 billion in payment costs to process $1.05 trillion in sales in 2025, a 10.4% increase in total costs versus 2023. That far exceeds the overall growth in travel sales over the same period, which was up 7.7% from $977 billion in 2023.

The average cost per transaction was $5 per passenger. In comparison, IATA forecasts that airlines will make a net profit of $4.50 per passenger in 2026.

IATA’s Interim Director General and CFO, said Sandrine Le Borgne said: “The airline industry is hyper competitive, capital intensive and famously low margin. In such an environment every cost item needs to be looked at carefully. The fact that payment transaction costs are increasing faster than industry revenues is unsustainable and, despite significant technological advances, highlights the critical need for greater cost efficiency.”

‎Further analysis of the $24.5 billion cost of payments in 2025 revealed that $20.7 billion (84.5% of the total) was related to payment fees or the direct cost of completing each transaction while $2.9 billion (11.8% of the total) was related to airline operating costs, including various payment systems, delayed cashflow, staff, and compliance and $0.9 billion (3.7% of the total) was lost due to fraud or uncollected sales.

Cards accounted for the highest cost per transaction with average payment fees at 2.53%, higher than the estimated overall average of 1.97%. The lowest-cost payment options were at 0.01%.

The 2025 IATA Global Passenger Survey revealed that 29% of passengers prefer to use a digital wallet and 8% prefer a local instant payment solution.