Something I keep noticing in payment business cases: the cost numbers are usually older than people think.

The figures that get quoted are around $20bn a year, about 3% of revenue, roughly 78% of industry net profit. They come from a study published in 2022, and that study used 2019 data.

A lot has changed since 2019. Channel mix, SCA, instant payments in Europe, wallets now at 56% of global e-commerce value.

IATA published a more recent set this August: $22.2bn of payment cost on $977bn of payment volume for 2024. That works out at 2.27%.

Two cost figures compared: about 3% of airline revenue, from 2019 data published in 2022, against 2.27% of payment volume, $22.2bn on $977bn, from 2024 data published in 2026

One other thing I have had to correct a few times, including for myself. The IATA Airline Payment Index is not a cost benchmark. It is a twenty question maturity self assessment across four pillars. It does not publish cost figures. It is an easy one to mix up.

I am not saying payment cost stopped mattering. It matters. But it is hard to negotiate against an industry average from seven years ago, and harder still if you do not have your own number next to it.

Cost per transaction, by channel, by market, by method, fully loaded. Very few teams I meet have that in front of them. Travel Payments Explained takes that number apart line by line, which is the method rather than the figure. The ones who do seem to have much better conversations with their providers.

What I left out

The two percentages are not the same measurement. McKinsey's roughly 3% is payment cost as a share of airline revenue. The IATA figure works out at 2.27% of payment volume, which is a different denominator. So the pair does not show costs coming down, and I did not claim it did, but it would be easy to read it that way. What the comparison actually shows is that the number in circulation is old, not that it has fallen.

Sources

  • $22.2bn of payment cost on $977bn of payment volume for 2024: IATA, 3 August 2026
  • Over $20bn a year, about 3% of revenue and about 78% of industry net profit, on 2019 data: McKinsey, 9 September 2022
  • The Airline Payment Index is a twenty question, four pillar maturity self assessment: IATA
  • Digital wallets at 56% of global e-commerce value, 2025 data: Worldpay and Global Payments, Global Payments Report 2026, published 31 March 2026

The 2.27% is arithmetic on the two IATA figures, not a quoted number.