Airline ancillary products sold by U.S. travel agencies (mostly seats with more legroom) continued to
rise in the first quarter of 2016 with a year-over-year dollar increase of
nearly 170% and a transaction increase of nearly 350%, according to data from
ARC.
Agencies reported Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD)
sales of $8.3 million in the first quarter, up from $3.1 million in last year’s
first quarter.
EMDs are used to report ancillary sales through ARC. ARC
has attributed the steady increase to EMD readiness.
In the first quarter, there were 106,792 EMD
transactions, up from 23,745 in the first quarter of 2015.
Meanwhile, the dollar value of airline tickets that U.S.
travel agents sold in the first quarter was down 3.4%, but the number of ticket
transactions increased 4.5%.
The first quarter saw $23.3 billion in sales, down from $24.1
billion. This year’s first quarter saw 43.2 million transactions, up from 41.3
million.