Flying with Europe’s biggest low-cost airlines is becoming significantly more expensive, even though carriers such as Ryanair and Wizz Air are still competing fiercely on headline ticket prices.
An analysis by aviation data provider Cirium found that the selected economy fares of Ryanair, easyJet and Wizz Air were 39.2 per cent higher in May 2026 than a year earlier. Compared with early 2024, average fares had more than doubled.
Importantly, these figures cover the airlines’ basic fares before taxes and external charges. They also exclude many of the extras passengers often end up paying for, such as checked luggage, seat selection and priority boarding.
In other words, the final price of a “cheap” flight can be considerably higher than the advertised fare.
Jet fuel is putting airlines under pressure
The biggest driver behind the rising costs is aviation fuel. According to Világgazdaság, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects airlines’ global fuel bill to increase from around $252 billion in 2025 to $350 billion in 2026, representing an increase of almost 40 per cent.
Jet fuel prices surged dramatically in the spring, reaching an average of $188 per barrel in April. Although prices have subsequently fallen, they remain significantly higher than before the latest energy shock.
Airlines cannot simply pass all of these additional costs on to passengers, however. European carriers are also facing increased competition. Cirium data shows that more than 5 per cent more seats are available on intra-European flights this summer. With passengers highly sensitive to prices, airlines have limited room to raise basic fares indefinitely.
The financial results of the low-cost giants demonstrate the pressure. Ryanair’s after-tax profit fell by around a third in the April-June quarter, while its average fares were 6 per cent lower than a year earlier. Wizz Air, meanwhile, reported an operating loss of €183.3 million for the same period.
The real money is increasingly in the extras
So if airlines cannot simply keep raising ticket prices, where does the money come from? Increasingly, it comes from everything outside the basic fare. Baggage, seat selection, priority boarding and other optional services have become crucial sources of revenue for low-cost carriers.
Ryanair generated €4.99 billion from ancillary services in the financial year that ended in March. That worked out at around €24 per passenger and accounted for almost a third of its total €15.54 billion revenue.
The proportion is even higher at Wizz Air. Ancillary services accounted for almost half of the airline’s total revenue in its financial year ending in March 2025. This means that the basic fare is becoming an increasingly incomplete measure of how much a low-cost flight actually costs.
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Is the low-cost model changing?
The traditional low-cost model is not disappearing, but it is becoming more complicated for passengers. Someone travelling with only a small amount of luggage, accepting an automatically assigned seat and avoiding additional services can still benefit from a genuinely cheap fare.
But once a passenger adds checked baggage, chooses a particular seat, wants priority boarding or requires other extras, the final bill can move considerably closer to the price charged by a traditional full-service airline. For carriers, meanwhile, ancillary revenue provides a way to keep headline fares relatively competitive while recovering some of their rising costs.
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Ryanair and Wizz Air face a delicate balancing act
There is little evidence that the low-cost sector itself is in crisis. Ryanair carried a record 208.4 million passengers in its latest financial year, with a load factor of 94 per cent, while its revenue increased by 11 per cent. The bigger question is how much passengers are willing to pay before the low-cost advantage starts to disappear.
As fuel remains expensive and airlines face rising operating costs, carriers such as Ryanair and Wizz Air are being forced to balance two competing priorities: keeping the advertised fare low enough to attract highly price-sensitive travellers, while generating more revenue from the extras passengers increasingly pay for.
For travellers, it’s important to learn the lesson: the cheapest ticket is not necessarily the cheapest flight. When comparing low-cost fares, the total cost — including luggage, seating and other necessities — is becoming more important than ever.
