Airline Sponsorship reaches $515m Annually

The airline industry’s global sports sponsorship expenditure has hit $515 million per year.

Two carriers, medicine Emirates and Etihad, hospital dominate the sponsorship market, accounting for nearly half the overall amount spend on worldwide sponsorship, with the former splashing out an estimated $182m annually solely on right fees.

The combined spending of US carriers has reached the $100 million mark per year, although their investment is noticeably targeted domestically. Delta and United are in the front of the queue, while JetBlue, who considers sponsorship to be its main marketing tool, has overtaken its biggest rival Southwest in the spending charts.

In the meantime, Europe’s ‘legacy’ carriers have taken a step back from sponsorship spend in a fierce and increasingly competitive arena. Aeroflot leads from the front as Europe’s biggest spender, acquiring rights to both Sochi 2014 and CSKA Moscow. British Airways and Turkish Airlines are the only other two carriers that have managed to sneak into the top 20 sports investment.

In Asia, AirAsia and Korean Air are the heavy hitters, yet sponsorship spend remains relatively low, despite Qantas and Virgin Australia having also invested more than usual.

It is predicted that airline sponsorship will continue increase steadily due to new competition, particularly Chinese and Indian airlines.