From Spirit Airlines’ fight for survival toAmerican Airlines‘ planned glow-upfrom new international routes and brand-new airport lounges to stingier frequent flyer policies, class divides in the sky will intensify in 2026.

Airlines went into 2025 upbeat:Delta Air LinesCEO Ed Bastian forecast a record year for the century-old carrier. But concerns about President Donald Trump’s trade war, skittish consumers and an oversupply of domestic seats brought U.S. airfare down and weighed on industry profits.

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“It’s the airline version of the K-shaped economy. Monetize the top of the K and minimize the shortfall at the bottom,” said Robert Mann, who has worked at several airlines and is president of aviation consulting firm R.W. Mann & Co.

Now, the leaders of the country’s biggest airlines are putting even focus on customers who will pay extra for their tickets in exchange for a little space or other perks like earlier boarding and access to never-sufficient overhead bin space.

They still face continued problems, like a shortage of air traffic controllers and aging infrastructure. Despite billions of additional federal spending to fix some of the problems, major improvements will take years.

Mann said airlines need to do to improve reliability. U.S. carriers had a 77% on-time rate, according to the Department of Transportation, which defines on-time as arrival within 15 minutes of the schedule.

“When the flight is late or canceled, it doesn’t matter if you’re at the top of the K or the bottom of the K,” he said.

Here’s how the next year is shaping up for the airline industry:

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Through the first nine months of the year, Delta andUnited Airlinesaccounted for nearly all of U.S. airline profits.

It’s an industry divide that’s been brewing for years, further fueled by a surge in costs and shifting consumer tastes as wealthier travelers have increased their share of overall spending.

While the economy has been resilient for the most part, any weakening in 2026 could have an outsize effect on price-sensitive consumers and, therefore, airlines that are exposed to coach-class domestic travel, like lower-cost carriers.

Those airlines have been making moves of their own.JetBlue Airwaysfor example, has been shifting its focus to profitable routes and premium seats. It plans to debut a domestic business class in mid-2026 with seats up at the front of the cabin that are roomier but not quite as elaborate as its top-tier lie-flat Mint suites.

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Airfare will likely remain steady next year over 2025, according to an American Express Global Business Travel forecast in mid-November.

Demand has rebounded after dropping during arecord-long government shutdownbut it’s not clear whether 2026 will be a blockbuster.

Southwest AirlinesCEO Bob Jordan told CNBC in December that the “first quarter looks strong” but that “it’s hard to say,” whether it will be better than a year ago.

Analysts expect that merger partner would beFrontier Airlinesthe fellow budget airline that has attempted to combine with Spirit repeatedly since 2022, but it’s not clear whether the two sides will reach a deal. Spirit said earlier this month that it’s in “active negotiations” for a stand-alone reorganization or a transaction. Frontier and Spirit declined to comment further.

Southwest’s preparing for a major change in 2026. The airline’s decades-long cattle call will end on Jan. 27 whenassigned seating begins.

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It’s coming off a slew of changes it already put into place last year. It debuted extra legroom seats that command higher prices and started charging many customers to check bags for the first time, a service that brought in than $7 billion for its U.S. rivals in 2024, the last full year of available data, according to the Transportation Department.

The carrier’s stock is the top gainer of U.S. passenger airlines. Southwest shares rose nearly 23% in 2025 compared with the NYSE Arca Airline Index’s 5% advance, and beat out profit leaders Delta and United as well as the broader market.

Investors have been bullish on the company’s transformation to a traditional, segmented airlinewhich has been sped along by a stake from activist investor Elliott Investment Management.

Just before Christmas, American also announced that it will no longer award customers on its no-frills basic economy tickets with frequent flyer miles, following a similar move by Delta several years ago.

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American hasn’t yet announced changes to its elite status requirements for 2027, but the carrier is under pressure because Delta and United have said they will hold status thresholds steady.

The airline is also making some changes that aim to improve reliability, recently announcing it will increase so-called banks, or clusters of flights at its largest hub, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, from nine to 13.

American also said it is testing out two electronic gates there, where passengers on narrow-body domestic flights scan their own boarding passes, in hopes of getting travelers on planes faster, and in September, it said it will remove bag sizers from gates.