Jet fuel prices ran 102% above the prior year in mid-September 2026, and airlines cannot push the full increase through to ticket prices. The unrecovered margin now sits with counterparties outside the carrier's balance sheet: manufacturers, unions, premium travelers, airports and the banks behind co-brand credit cards.

Spirit Airlines shut down in May after its second bankruptcy in a year. North America's largest carriers have stayed profitable on tight capacity, loyalty cash and premium demand. The split comes down to who holds leverage when fuel doubles, labor locks in and interchange rules shift.

Skift Aviation Forum convenes these counterparties in New York on November 12, with an opening reception on November 11 at Apella by Alexandria. The main event at the TWA Hotel at JFK puts airline commercial leaders on the same stage as the manufacturers, union leaders, airport chiefs and loyalty executives they negotiate with.

What does the manufacturer shortage mean for fares?

Meaningful narrowbody delivery slots for the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 Max stay scarce until roughly 2033, with widebody availability tight into the mid-2030s.

Lessors placed the largest orders at Farnborough in July, absorbing balance-sheet risk airlines no longer want to carry. The shortage caps every carrier's growth and, in doing so, has kept capacity tight enough to support fares while fuel climbed.

The forced decision is a decade-long fleet commitment financed with lessor capital. Robin Hayes, chairman and CEO of Airbus in North America, and Arjan Meijer, president and CEO of Embraer Commercial Aviation, take the stage on the order book.

Why are unions now the fixed base of every capacity plan?

United became the last of the big four US airlines to settle with its flight attendants in May. The five-year contract includes a 31% pay increase, $741 million in retroactive pay and boarding pay. The other three had already signed similar deals.

Those costs landed in the same year fuel doubled, and an airline cannot hedge them. Europe's largest airline groups face the same squeeze, with labor and airport costs climbing alongside fuel.

Labor is now the fixed base that every capacity plan has to clear before fuel, fares or fleet enter the math. Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, sits with the airline commercial leaders whose plans her members' contracts have to fit.

How much of the cushion comes from the premium cabin?

Premium cabins generated $188 billion in 2024, or 24% of global airline passenger revenue. US premium capacity has grown 33% since 2020, against 16% for economy. Self-funded leisure travelers now drive much of that demand.

Skift Research flags the next risk as oversupply. If every carrier scales premium at once, yields dilute. The decision is how much cabin to allocate to premium before the industry builds more of it than travelers will buy.

IAG chief executive Luis Gallego and Breeze Airways founder David Neeleman take the premium panel.

Who owns the premium traveler's time on the ground?

Airports are building on decade-long horizons. Dallas Fort Worth targets 100 million passengers by 2030, with a new Terminal F at the center of that growth. Airlines will fly into that capacity and pay for it through the charges that fund it.

Airports are also moving into the premium experience. At São Paulo's Guarulhos, a fully private terminal operating independently of airlines reached capacity quickly and pushed carriers to change their procedures.

The decision is who owns the premium traveler's time on the ground, and who pays for the terminals built to hold them. John Ackerman, CEO of Los Angeles World Airports, is preparing LAX for the 2028 Olympics and a $30 billion transformation.

How much of an airline's earnings sit on a bank partnership?

Delta collected $8.2 billion from American Express in 2025, about 14% of adjusted operating revenue. Co-brand operating margins run an estimated 35% to 50%. Outside the US, IAG Loyalty targets more than €1 billion in operating profit, with over 80% of revenue coming from external partners buying Avios.

That revenue depends on uncapped US interchange fees, which the Credit Card Competition Act would put at risk. The decision is how much of an airline's earnings to tie to a bank partner and a regulation it does not control. Tiffany Funk of Air France-KLM's Flying Blue, American Airlines chief commercial officer Nat Pieper and Air Canada's Mark Nasr take the loyalty panel.

The question beneath all five relationships is who is still independent in five years. The industry is consolidating, and the carriers that emerge strongest will look different from the ones that went in. Sessions at the TWA Hotel on November 12 will test that thesis against the people on both sides of the order book.