The News in DataBUSINESS
№ 031 · OCT. 27, 2026

Credit Card Partners Paid American Airlines $6.2 Billion In 2025, Four Times Its Operating Profit

Delta got $8.2 billion from American Express, 1.4 times what it earned running the airline, and the carriers without big card deals lost money or barely broke even.

By Samuel W. Bennett
$6.2BCARD-PARTNER CASH
TO AMERICAN, 2025
4.2×AMERICAN’S 2025
OPERATING PROFIT
American Airlines received $6.2 billion in cash from its co-branded credit card and other partners in 2025, according to its annual report, 4.2 times its operating income of $1.47 billion. Delta Air Lines received $8.2 billion from American Express, 1.4 times its $5.82 billion operating income and equal to 12.9% of its revenue. Those are the only two U.S. airlines that report how much cash their card partners pay them each year.
How the card money worksA bank buys miles from the airline in bulk and hands them to cardholders as a reward for spending, and it pays extra for the airline's brand, marketing and perks such as free checked bags for cardholders. The airline counts part of that cash as revenue right away and holds the rest on its books until members spend the miles on a flight. The cash isn't all profit, because each award seat is a seat the airline could have sold, but it arrives whether or not the planes are full, and it grew 11% at Delta in 2025.
Among the biggest airlines, Delta and United keep the most of each dollarDelta kept 9.2 cents of operating profit from every dollar of revenue in 2025 and United kept 8.0 cents, compared with 2.7 cents at American, 2.1 cents at Alaska and 1.5 cents at Southwest. Sun Country, a small Minneapolis carrier that also flies cargo for Amazon and charters, earned 9.0 cents. JetBlue lost 4.1 cents on every dollar and Frontier lost 4.0 cents, and Allegiant made 1.4 cents.
Where the rest of the money goesOperating costs took 90.8 cents of every dollar Delta brought in during 2025, 92.0 cents at United and 97.3 cents at American, and they topped revenue at JetBlue (104.1 cents) and Frontier (104.0 cents). Salaries and benefits are the largest cost at every airline, from 27.6 cents per dollar of revenue at Delta to 46.2 cents at Southwest, and fuel is second at 15.5 to 24.9 cents. American spent 32.2 cents of each revenue dollar on pay and 19.6 cents on fuel, compared with 27.6 and 15.5 cents at Delta, though Delta's ratios are lower partly because its revenue includes about $5 billion of sales from its oil refinery to other companies.
Airlines owe their members billions in unspent milesEvery mile sold to a bank and not yet redeemed sits on an airline's balance sheet as a debt to its members. At the end of 2025, American owed members $10.6 billion in unredeemed miles, 7.2 times its operating income, and Delta owed $9.3 billion, 1.6 times. United's balance was $7.8 billion, Southwest's $4.3 billion and Alaska's $3.4 billion, the last two more than 10 times their 2025 operating income.
The six biggest airlines on one chartThe six largest U.S. airlines took in $228.4 billion in 2025 and kept $12.4 billion of it, 5.4 cents of each dollar, as operating profit. Delta and United brought in 54% of that revenue and 85% of the profit. Across the six, salaries and benefits took 32.4 cents of each dollar and fuel 18.4 cents, and the $14.4 billion that Delta and American received from their card partners was more than all six airlines' combined operating profit.

The others don't report the full number

United, Southwest, Alaska and JetBlue all have co-branded cards with banks but don't disclose the total cash those banks pay. United reported $3.2 billion of partner revenue in 2025 for marketing and other benefits, a figure that leaves out the miles themselves, so it can't be compared with Delta's or American's totals. Alaska said its loyalty program, card spending included, brought in $2.28 billion, about 16% of its revenue.

The card checks are getting bigger

Delta said on Oct. 9 that its American Express payments grew 15% in the third quarter of 2026 and that the full-year total is on track to exceed $9 billion. Citi became the sole issuer of American's AAdvantage cards in January 2026, and American has said it expects card and partner cash to grow about 10% a year until it approaches $10 billion a year.

What the data can't tell us

Card cash and operating income are different measures, and comparing them shows how much the card deals are worth relative to the rest of the business, not what each airline would earn without them, since the banks also pay for seats and services the airline has to provide. The figures are each company's own annual reports, and Alaska's 2025 results include Hawaiian Airlines for the full year after the two merged in 2024. Spirit Airlines has not filed a 2025 annual report and isn't included.

How we counted: 2025 revenue, operating income and pre-tax income from each airline's annual report (Form 10-K) as filed with the SEC, using GAAP figures. Card cash: American, "cash payments from co-branded credit card and other partners," 10-K; Delta, "American Express remuneration," fourth-quarter 2025 earnings release. Unredeemed miles: current plus noncurrent loyalty program liability or deferred revenue on each balance sheet at Dec. 31, 2025. Operating margin = operating income divided by total operating revenue. Operating costs = total operating expenses; salaries and benefits and fuel are the line items each airline reports (Delta's fuel line includes fuel taxes). Sources: American Airlines 10-K; Delta full-year 2025 results; Delta September quarter 2026 results; American Airlines 8-K on the Citi agreement, Dec. 5, 2024; SEC EDGAR filings for each airline; Reuters via Investing.com, March 13, 2026. Download the data.