The 22% airfare, next to a $194 billion flying bill

The last print, and the bill it lands on

The Labor Department’s September consumer-price report, the last major inflation print before November’s midterms, put two travel costs in the same sentence. Gasoline jumped 9.1% from August to September. Air fares were up 22% from a year earlier, and hotel prices rose too, according to the Associated Press. That is a very visible kind of inflation: it shows up at the pump on the way to the airport. It is not, however, a new bill. It is a surcharge on a bill that was already large.

The official household books run a year behind the CPI. In calendar 2025, the latest full year in the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s state personal-consumption accounts, Americans spent $20.87 trillion on goods and services. Of that, $419 billion went to gasoline and other energy goods — motor fuels plus fuel oils — and $194 billion went to air transportation. Hotels and other accommodations added another $202 billion. Flying was 0.93% of the household budget; gasoline and other energy goods were 2.01%. Combined, air travel and hotels were $396 billion, close to the energy-goods line. Those are current-dollar totals, not ticket prices, and they stop at 2025. They still tell you where a 22% airfare increase actually lands.

The airfare bill kept rising after the gasoline bill peaked

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year	air_billions	gasoline_billions	hotels_billions
2015	89.99	318.8	137.65
2016	89.63	287.01	141.53
2017	94.75	323.98	149.68
2018	104.26	366.68	156.81
2019	116.54	352.51	161.69
2020	48.53	258.46	87.93
2021	101.04	385.74	124.72
2022	153.03	514.6	173.15
2023	168.54	464.9	192.85
2024	189.13	441.62	197.53
2025	193.97	418.81	201.84

Flying grew. Gasoline’s share shrank.

Set 2019 to 100, before the pandemic emptied the planes. By 2025, household air-travel spending was at 166. Gasoline and other energy goods were at 119. Hotels were at 125. All household spending was at 145. In other words, Americans’ flying bill grew faster than their overall budget, and much faster than their gasoline bill, even though 2022 was a brutal year at the pump. Gasoline spending peaked at $515 billion that year and then fell for three straight years, to $419 billion in 2025. Air travel did the opposite: it collapsed to $49 billion in 2020, then kept climbing through 2025.

The mix of the household budget moved with those paths. Gasoline and other energy goods were 2.44% of spending in 2019 and 2.01% in 2025. Air travel went the other way, from 0.81% to 0.93%. From 2024 to 2025, the air-travel bill was still rising, by 2.6%, while the gasoline-and-energy-goods bill fell 5.2%. None of that means September 2026 gasoline is cheap. It means that when prices jump at the pump, they are jumping on a category that had been shrinking as a share of the budget, while air fares are jumping on a category that had already been taking more room.

Air-travel spending has outrun gasoline since 2019

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year	air	gasoline	hotels	all_spending
2015	77.2	90.4	85.1	85.2
2016	76.9	81.4	87.5	88.2
2017	81.3	91.9	92.6	92.1
2018	89.5	104	97	96.5
2019	100	100	100	100
2020	41.6	73.3	54.4	98.6
2021	86.7	109.4	77.1	111.6
2022	131.3	146	107.1	122.4
2023	144.6	131.9	119.3	130
2024	162.3	125.3	122.2	137.3
2025	166.4	118.8	124.8	144.6

Where the airfare hike actually hits

The national average hides the geography of flying. BEA records spending by state of residence, not by where the plane takes off. In 2025, air transportation was 2.36% of household spending in Hawaii, 1.91% in Arizona, 1.83% in Alaska, 1.65% in Florida and 1.54% in Montana. California and New York sat near the U.S. average of 0.93%. Texas, a driving state with enormous gasoline outlays, spent only 0.57% of its household budget on air travel.

In three of those states, flying had already overtaken the pump. Hawaii households spent $2.15 billion on air travel in 2025 and $0.98 billion on gasoline and other energy goods. Alaska spent $0.95 billion on flying and $0.70 billion on energy goods. Florida, which is not a small island, spent $25.6 billion on air travel and $24.5 billion on gasoline and other energy goods. Arizona, where the president was campaigning this week as gasoline prices dominated the political argument, was nearly tied: $8.48 billion on flying and $9.11 billion on energy goods. Montana still looks like a gasoline state — 2.52% of spending on energy goods versus 1.54% on air — but its air-travel bill more than doubled from 2019.

Every state in this set saw air-travel spending outrun overall household spending between 2019 and 2025. Alaska’s flying bill was up 164%, Montana’s 121%, Florida’s 103%. Even California’s 45% rise in air-travel spending slightly outpaced its 42% rise in total spending. These are nominal dollars: some of the increase is more flying, some of it is more expensive seats. The CPI print does not split those. The household books do show that a 22% airfare increase is not a rounding error in the states that already fly a lot, including two the White House was working this week.

Hawaii, Arizona and Florida already spend more of the budget on flying

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state	air_b	total_b	air_share_pct
Hawaii	2.15	91.3	2.36
Arizona	8.48	444.9	1.91
Alaska	0.95	51.8	1.83
Florida	25.6	1550	1.65
Montana	1.08	70.2	1.54
California	26.16	2757.9	0.95
United States	193.97	20870.2	0.93
New York	12.78	1393.3	0.92
Texas	10.06	1771.8	0.57

In Hawaii, Alaska and Florida, flying already rivals the pump

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state	air_share_pct	gas_share_pct	air_b	gas_b	air_over_gas_pct
Hawaii	2.36	1.07	2.15	0.98	219.2
Arizona	1.91	2.05	8.48	9.11	93.1
Alaska	1.83	1.36	0.95	0.7	134.5
Florida	1.65	1.58	25.6	24.51	104.4
Montana	1.54	2.52	1.08	1.77	61.3
California	0.95	1.63	26.16	44.83	58.3
United States	0.93	2.01	193.97	418.81	46.3
New York	0.92	1.13	12.78	15.72	81.3
Texas	0.57	2.26	10.06	40.1	25.1

Air-travel bills grew faster than overall spending in every state shown

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state	air_2019_b	air_2025_b	air_chg_pct	pce_chg_pct	air_share_2019	air_share_2025
Hawaii	1.16	2.15	85.4	36.5	1.73	2.36
Arizona	4.74	8.48	79.2	55.2	1.65	1.91
Alaska	0.36	0.95	164.1	40.4	0.97	1.83
Florida	12.62	25.6	102.9	60.1	1.3	1.65
Montana	0.49	1.08	121	53.2	1.07	1.54
California	18.03	26.16	45.1	42.1	0.93	0.95
United States	116.54	193.97	66.4	44.6	0.81	0.93
New York	8.93	12.78	43	38.5	0.89	0.92
Texas	5.26	10.06	91.4	51.4	0.45	0.57

What 2025 cannot tell you about September 2026

Two caveats belong next to those numbers, not in a footnote. First, “gasoline and other energy goods” is broader than the pump: it includes fuel oils and lubricants, so it is a high-side label for motor fuel. Air transportation is household spending on air travel, not the airline industry’s output, and it is assigned to the traveler’s home state. Second, the annual accounts end in 2025. They cannot measure September 2026’s 9.1% monthly gasoline jump or the 22% airfare increase in the CPI. They can tell you the size of the bills those price changes hit. A gasoline spike lands on a $419 billion energy-goods line that had been shrinking. An airfare spike lands on a $194 billion flying line that had been growing, and on state budgets — Hawaii, Arizona, Florida — where flying is no longer a small slice of the month.