Over three decades fuel is the band that swings, while the cost of selling a ticket shrinks from a fifth of the bill to a twentieth.
What this shows: The chart covers 1995 Q1 to 2025 Q3. It plots Fuel, Aircraft operations ex-fuel, Passenger service and cabin crew, Ground and traffic servicing, Sales and advertising and Administrative, depreciation and amortisation on a vertical axis of Share of operating expense (%). Latest values: Fuel 16.7; Aircraft operations ex-fuel 32.6; Passenger service and cabin crew 15; Ground and traffic servicing 18.2; Sales and advertising 5.1; Administrative, depreciation and amortisation 9.6. Data run through 2025 Q3.
Conditions and method
The bands do not sum to exactly 100%: across the sample they cover 90.6–104.0% of reported total operating expense (mean 96.3%). The rest is items the filing assigns to no line, and no residual band is plotted, so read each band as a level of its own.
Fuel is shown as its own band and taken out of the aircraft operations band, which is left with cockpit crew, maintenance, aircraft rentals, insurance and flight equipment depreciation.