Issue 66 Monday 15 March 2021 www.anker-report.com Contents Russia and Turkey lead the way in Q1 1 Russia and Turkey lead the way in Q1 thanks to domestic markets. 3 UK and French domestic recovery thanks to massive domestic markets rates compared; France benefits from overseas territories while While Western Europe continues to see the slower than hoped In most months, the domestic load factor has also been better Heathrow dominates UK’s top for rollout of the assorted COVID vaccines, the leading aviation than the international load factor, with around 80% of seats routes rankings travel markets in Europe are currently in the east of the being filled on domestic flights since July. continent. As previously highlighted, Russia and Turkey, thanks Turkish Airlines operating most flights in Europe 4 Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar in part to their massive domestic markets, are coping with Airways have resumed many of COVID travel restrictions better than anywhere else in Europe. Flight data in European airspace, tracked by Eurocontrol, has their European services. consistently shown in recent weeks that Turkish Airlines is This is highlighted by the fact that, according to The ANKER operating more flights than any other carrier. In addition, in 5 Latest European route news; 31 new Report’s European Airport Traffic Statistics (EATS) database of percentage terms, it is now operating around 50% of flights routes from 18 airlines analysed. over 400 airports, in January, six of the top seven busiest compared with the same period in 2019. This is a figure beaten 8 S7 Airlines is Russia’s leading airline airports for passengers were in either Russia or Turkey. This by only a handful of other carriers in Europe; fellow Turkish in recent months; big domestic comprised all three major Moscow airports, both Istanbul carrier Pegasus Airlines (based at Istanbul SAW), Qatar Airways airports and Pulkovo Airport serving St. Petersburg. In terms of and Norwegian regional carrier Widerøe (see graph on page 2). network from Domodedovo. the busiest cities in Europe for air travel, Moscow leads the 9 Mini airport profiles of Klagenfurt in way, ahead of Istanbul, Paris, London and Frankfurt. According to the airline’s passenger statistics for January, it carried 1.97 million passengers (down 65% compared with Austria, La Palma in Spain and Lodz In addition to the three Moscow hubs, the airport serving the in Poland. January 2019) at a load factor of just over 60%. This makes it Black Sea resort of Sochi (home of the 2014 Winter Olympics Europe’s busiest airline, as Aeroflot Group’s figures were 10 Ryanair returns to Belfast City and and the venue for the Russian Grand Prix) ranked 13th, spread over three carriers. Teesside; will serve 23 UK airports reporting passenger growth (yes, growth) of 45% compared Since Turkish Airlines is kind enough to provide monthly this summer. with January 2019. Just ahead of it in the rankings was London LHR, for many years Europe’s busiest airport. Times have operational data by geographic region, we can track how much indeed changed. and how quickly each of the regions have recovered. Not Welcome surprisingly, the domestic market was the first to recover, Although only Istanbul’s two main airports made the top 15, reaching 50% of the previous year’s figure in August, other Turkish airports with significant passenger activity in September and October. Since then the domestic market seems January were; Izmir (318k, down 64%), Ankara (311k, down to have shown signs of decline, falling to just 35% of the 2019 70%) and Antalya (293k, down 69%). Overall, Turkey’s airports figure in January 2021. handled 5.2 million passengers in January (down 63%). Russia’s top five airports alone handled 5.4 million, with the top 15 The European market recovered to around 30% of its previous airports in European Russia processing in excess of seven level by August, and has since stabilised that level. The African million passengers, confirming Russia as Europe’s leading air market has been recovering gradually but consistently every travel market right now. month, passing 40% of the 2019 figure in January. The North American market has also seen a steady recovery. The Central For comparison, Spain’s airports welcomed 2.8m passengers and South America region may be Turkish Airlines’s smallest (down 83%) in January, Germany’s airports around 1.8m (down 89%), Italy’s airports With Easter now just a few weeks away 1.6m (down 87%) and UK airports just 1.3 million (down 93%). the hoped for recovery in the European air travel market looks like it will be Aeroflot Group leads the way delayed, particularly in western With Russia’s airports welcoming so many Europe. With the notable exception of passengers, it may come as no surprise the UK, the vaccination roll out is not that the Aeroflot Group has been doing relatively well. It carried 2.36 million going as quickly as expected. Even in passengers in January (down 43%), but this the UK, leisure travel is still basically was spread over three carriers. Aeroflot banned until at least mid-May. But carried 1.04m passengers (down 60%) at a with cases increasing again across load factor of 70%, Pobeda carried 928k some parts of Europe, which passengers (up 0.5%) at a load factor of destinations will actually be open to 90.3%, and Rossiya transported 390,000 travellers remains unclear. mostly domestic passengers (down 31%) at a load factor of 78%. In this issue we again look at global In the graph on the right we have tracked traffic trends and focus on the relative Aeroflot Group’s progress since last success of Russia and Turkey. Plus January by passenger numbers and load analysis of Ryanair in the UK, S7 factor. Domestic traffic recovered amazingly quickly thanks to Russians Airlines and the European activities of forsaking their international summer the three big Middle East carriers. vacations in favour of staying closer to Despite all the challenges, we still have home, with airports on the Black Sea and analysis of over 30 new route launches the Caspian Sea benefitting significantly in the last four weeks. along with Kaliningrad. In August and September domestic traffic Ralph Anker ([email protected]) had virtually returned to 2020 levels though October and November saw relatively modest declines. December 2020 and January 2021 have seen the domestic market pick up once again. International demand picked up to around 15% of the previous year’s level in September and has stayed at around that level ever since as a result of the travel restrictions imposed by Russia and other countries. The ANKER Report Issue 66: Monday 15 March 2021 1 geographic market, but it has finally recovered quite quickly in recent months after being completely non- existent from April through to September. In January, Turkish Airlines carried a modest 23,811 passengers on routes to/from Central & South America but this was down ‘only’ 37.7% compared with January 2019. According to Cirium Data and Analytics, Turkish Airlines was serving Bogota (3-weekly), Caracas (2-weekly) and Sao Paulo GRU (3-weekly) non-stop from Istanbul IST in January. Turkey’s LCC Pegasus Airlines also doing well Supporting Turkish Airlines in keeping the Turkish market relatively healthy, is low-cost carrier Pegasus Airlines. It reported carrying 1.05 million passengers in January (down 59%) at a load factor of 74.6%. There were 700,000 passengers on domestic flights (down 51%) at a load factor of 82.7%, while international services transported 350,000 customers (down 69%) at a load factor of 62.6%. Ryanair traffic down 88% Among Western European airlines reporting figures for January, Ryanair carried 1.3 million passengers (down 88%) at a load factor of 69%, while Wizz Air welcomed 574,000 passengers (down 82%) at a load factor of 61%. Sadly, IAG is only reporting quarterly figures for its member airlines, while Lufthansa Group is still reporting monthly data, but only at the end of each quarter. Air France KLM’s website last reported monthly traffic in March 2020 and has since also started only reporting on a quarterly basis. However, IAG’s Q4 figures showed that passenger numbers were down 84.5%, with domestic (UK & Spain) performing best at minus 73.3%. North America and Asia & Pacific were both down around 94%. In terms of load factor, across the group it average 45%, with domestic again leading the way (at 60.5%) and North American routes reporting just 26% passenger load factor. Looking at the individual carriers, traffic was down 80% at Iberia, 82% at Vueling, 86% at British Airways and 94% at Aer Lingus. In terms of load factor, Vueling was best at 60.4%, followed by Iberia (50.7%), British Airways (41.8%) and Aer Lingus (20.9%). The last three will have been operating many long-haul services primarily for freight purposes, thus compromising their passenger loads. In particular, British Airways’s cargo was down just 29% in Q4, despite a reduction of 72% in Available Seat Kilometres (ASKs). KLM sees cargo growth in Q4 Since the last issue of The ANKER Report four weeks ago, Europe’s leading airlines have seen only relatively small changes in their levels of operation. Among the basket of 12 of Europe’s largest pre-COVID airlines, Turkish Airlines continues to lead the way in terms of level of recovery, 2019, Wizz Air at 24%, Vueling 9.5%, easyJet 8.0%, Curiously, on the international graph, Italy’s green line followed by KLM, Air France, Iberia and then Wizz Air.