Issue 60 Monday 14 September 2020 www.anker-report.com Contents Europe’s recovery stalls in September; 1 Europe’s recovery stalling in early September; heading for crash landing this winter? heading for crash landing this winter? 3 Norwegian has launched over 100 Analysis of the latest European aircraft movement data from Norway’s August traffic is still only about 35% of last year’s international Oslo routes including Eurocontrol (up to and including Saturday 12 September) figure. to US; overtook SAS in 2016. shows that the recovery that was seen in July, and stabilised in Turkey has improved from 28% in July to 41% in August, while 4 Minsk passed five million passen- August, is now showing signs of stalling as we reach mid- Spain’s figure has risen from 24% to 30%. Neighbour Portugal gers in 2019; Belavia is dominant September. On 12 September, the weekly moving average has seen its figure increase from 20% in July to 33% in August, carrier serving over 50 destinations. showed that flights were at 47% of the level a year previously. while the Netherlands has improved from 22% to 28%. A week earlier, on 5 September, the figure stood at 48.3%. 6 Turkish Airlines was Europe’s Denmark has improved only modestly from 19% to 22%, but leading domestic airline in 2019 by The drop is being driven by the main (U)LCCs with Ryanair, Malta, a popular holiday destination, has improved from 19% to seats; now second behind Aeroflot. easyJet and Wizz Air (currently ranked first, second and sixth 31%. Another popular holiday destination, Croatia, increased its respectively for European flights) all seeing drops of between traffic from 18% to 30%. 7 Whatever happened to Flybe’s 70- three percentage points and seven percentage points in their plus UK domestic routes? Despite flights operated compared with a week ago. At the bottom of the rankings, Finland has gone from 11% in pandemic, almost 50 now served. July to 14% in August, Ireland has gone from 10% to 14% and The carriers currently ranked third to fifth in Europe are Turkish Slovenia has gone from 10% to 13%. 8 St. Petersburg close to 20 million Airlines, Air France and Lufthansa. They too have all seen a drop passengers in 2019; domestic routes in relative flights during the last week. Other airlines still Last Friday, London LHR announced its August traffic figures. dominate; Wizz Air expanding. operating fewer than 25% of the flights they did last year are Compared with July when they were just 11% of the 2019 Brussels Airlines (16%), Aer Lingus (19%) and Finnair (23%). figure, the August figure is now 18.5% of the 2019 figure, 9 Mini airport profiles of Eindhoven in representing an improvement of more than seven percentage the Netherlands, Iasi in Romania Russia and Norway lead recovery in July; UK lagging points. Germany’s two biggest airports, Frankfurt and Munich, and Santorini in Greece. While looking at flights tells one story, a potentially more telling have reported improvements in August versus July of three and 10 Channel Islands reported record analysis comes from looking at passenger numbers across five percentage points respectively. traffic in 2019; collapse of Flybe a Europe’s airports. The ANKER Report’s EATS (European Airport Overall, The ANKER Report estimates that across Europe, Traffic Statistics) file has July passenger data for over 350 major blow, but BA now serves LHR. August traffic figures will be somewhere between 25% and 35% airports from which we can reveal how different countries are performing Welcome compared with July 2019. The graph below shows for 31 European countries what percentage of traffic they have retained compared with July 2019. Clearly leading the way are Russia (at just over 40%, based on analysis of their four busiest airports in Moscow and St. Petersburg), and Norway at almost 35%. Statistics from Avinor reveal that while international traffic was down 88% in July, domestic traffic was down ‘just’ 38%. Among Europe’s big six air travel markets, Turkey was performing best at Oh dear. The general feeling that the 28% of last year’s figure, helped by a European air travel market was slowly, large domestic market. Italy, Spain and but steadily, showing signs of recovery France were all at around 24% to 25% of has taken a hit in the last few weeks. A last year, while Germany was at 20%. relaxation in lockdowns across Europe The UK is at under 12%, partly as a result has seen a significant increase in Covid- of being more reliant on international traffic. Its list of countries which are on 19 cases resulting in countries the quarantine list has been changing on introducing more restrictions on air a weekly basis and has included many of travel. Right now it seems almost the most popular holiday destinations. impossible to predict sensibly what Overall, The ANKER Report estimates might happen in the coming months. that passenger numbers at European airports are between 20% and 25% of Ralph Anker last July’s figures. [email protected] August data for over 170 airports The EATS file (available to download from www.anker-report.com) now also has August data for over 170 airports. This reveals that most countries have seen an improvement in demand compared with July. Although no figures were found for Moscow’s airports, St. Petersburg’s August traffic was at almost 70% of last year’s figure. However, The ANKER Report Issue 60: Monday 14 September 2020 1 of those seen in August 2019. This is considerably below IAG and Lufthansa group only reporting quarterly the comparable figure for movements, confirming the While LCCs are pretty good at reporting monthly traffic drop in load factors. What is even more concerning is the same can not be said of the major legacy carrier the fall in flights seen in September. While this may be groups. Co-incidentally (or not) both IAG and Lufthansa offset partly by improvements in load factor, as airlines Group seem to have gone from reporting monthly in rightsize their operations, it currently seems doubtful 2019 to only reporting quarterly in 2020. Their most that September traffic in Europe will be better than recent figures therefore cover the period of April to June August in relative terms. 2020. LCCs reveal summer load factors IAG’s figures revealed that during Q2 its airlines had the Airport passenger figures, useful though they are, do not following passenger load factors: 49.3% for Iberia, 45.3% reveal anything about load factors. For this we need for Vueling, 27.6% for British Airways and just 9.2% (yes, airline reports. The following is a summary of recently less than 10%) for Aer Lingus. However, Aer Lingus’ reported figures for Europe’s leading carriers, starting cargo tonne kilometre figure was up 21% compared with with Ryanair. Q2 in 2019. Across all member airlines, the passenger The Irish ULCC has reported carrying seven million load factor on North American routes was just 15%, (revenue passenger kilometres), domestic was down passengers in August (which is 47% of its August 2019 confirming that these flights were operating primarily to 49%, European international was down 82%, while figure) with a load factor of 73%. This compared with 4.4 carry cargo. intercontinental was down 97%. million passengers in July (30% of 2019 figure) at a load Domestic load factor (in Italy, Spain and the UK) was 150 new routes launched in last seven weeks factor of 72%. It recently announced it was planning to reported at 46% compared with 38% for intra European close its Düsseldorf base in Germany, threatened to stop international services. The few flights operated to Africa Since Issue 59 of The ANKER Report in late July, we have all Irish flights this winter, and believes that winter 20/21 and the Middle East reported load factors of 76%, identified 151 new services launched by 27 carriers will be a ‘write-off’. It is also not happy about the though this may have been driven by high loads on involving European airports. However, the last week saw bailouts being given to some of Europe’s flag-carriers, in repatriation flights flown early during the pandemic. just four new routes launch, as more and more planned particular Lufthansa. new routes appear to be being delayed until later in the Although Lufthansa Group only reports quarterly, when year or even next year. easyJet only reports quarterly, but did reveal in its it does it reveals separate figures for each of the three trading statement for Q2 that it carried just over two months. Looking at June figures, Lufthansa carried Over 40% (65) of the new routes were launched by just million passengers in July (around 20% of its 2019 figure) 551,000 passengers (8% of 2019) at a load factor of one carrier, Wizz Air, while a further 20% (33) were at an impressively high load factor of 81%. However, it 55.7%. SWISS carried 148,000 (7.5% of 2019) at a load launched by Ryanair. Then came easyJet with 11 new may be a while before its August figures become public factor of 42.3%, Austrian Airlines carried 52,000 (3.6% of routes and Blue Islands with four. Among the airlines knowledge. 2019) at a load factor of 65.1%, and Brussels Airlines was a brand new carrier, Lübeck Air of Germany, which carried 36,000 (3.6% of 2019) at a load factor of 51.7%. began two domestic routes from the airport of the same Wizz Air has reported August figures.