Industry Monitor The EUROCONTROL bulletin on air transport trends Issue N°157. 29/11/13 European flights were up 0.4% in October. This is EUROCONTROL statistics and forecasts 1 the third consecutive monthly growth after 18 Other statistics and forecasts 2 months of decline. Preliminary data for November show a 0.3% decrease in traffic on the same Passenger airlines 2 month last year. Financial results of airlines 6 European Commission estimated GDP in the Airports 6 Euro area to shrink by 0.4% in 2013 before Environment 7 growing by 1.1% in 2014 and 1.7% in 2015. Aircraft manufacturing 7 Top ten European airlines listed in this bulletin Regulation 8 posted €3.7 billion operating profits during the Oil 8 third quarter, a 25% increase on the same period in 2012. Economy 9 Fares 9 Oil prices remained at circa €80 per barrel in November. EUROCONTROL statistics and forecasts European flights increased by 0.4% in October compared with the same month last year (Figure 1). Low-cost traffic was the strongest of the market segments in October with 3% growth on October 2012. Business aviation, charter and all-cargo were down by 2%, 1.6% and 1.3% respectively. Scheduled traffic remained at the same level as last year. Preliminary data for November show a 0.3% decrease in traffic on November 2012, mostly due to the extra Saturday this year (EUROCONTROL, November). Based on preliminary data from airlines for delay from all causes, 36% of flights were delayed on departure in October, an increase of 1.3 percentage point on October 2012. The average delay per movement in October 2013 decreased to 8.7 minutes from 9.3 minutes. Further analysis of the delay reasons shows that reactionary delays decreased by 0.6 minutes per flight to 3.7 minutes. ATFCM En-route delays as reported by airlines decreased during the month, this falling to 0.3 minute per flight compared to 0.5 minute in October 2012 (Figure 2) (EUROCONTROL, November). Industry Monitor. Issue 157. 29/11/13 Page 1 © EUROCONTROL 2013 Figure 1: Monthly European Traffic and Forecast. Other statistics and forecasts IATA reported that European scheduled passenger traffic (RPK) increased by 3.4% in September 2013 compared with the year-ago period. Capacity was up 3.1% and the total passenger load factor was 83.9% (IATA, 31 October). ACI reported overall passenger counts at European airports to be up 3.2% in 3Q13 compared with 3Q12 with overall aircraft movements increased by 1.8%. Cargo tonnage was up 0.9% during the third quarter (ACI, 5 November). Passenger airlines Capacity, costs and jobs Air Serbia ordered 10 Airbus A320neo aircraft to renew its fleet (IM156). The deal is part of its equity partner Etihad’s order for up to 117 Airbus. Delivery will take place between 2018 and 2020 to completely replace Air Serbia’s fleet of 10 B737-300 aircraft (Air Serbia, 19 November). As part of the third phase of its Turnaround plan, Flybe is to reduce its costs further, cutting 500 jobs and closing six regional bases (Aberdeen, Guernsey, Inverness, Isle of Man, Jersey and Newcastle). The airline reported improved financial results during 1H13 owing to the closure of its Gatwick base and the suspension of its routes from the airport in spring 2014 (Flybe, 11 November). It is reported that German regional start-up Rostock Airways which originally planned to launch operations in August (IM150) delayed its launch until January 2014, starting with routes from Rostock to Frankfurt and Munich and adding Copenhagen later in 2014 (ATW, 12 November) Industry Monitor. Issue 157. 29/11/13 Page 2 © EUROCONTROL 2013 Breakdown of average delay per flight Percentage of flights delayed on departure Figure 2: Delay Statistics (all causes, airline-reported delay – preliminary data for October 2013). Resulting from the transfer of Austrian Airlines’s flight operations to Tyrolean last year, Austrian confirmed to cut 150 jobs in 2014 as it will merge the engineering and flight operations administration of both airlines (Austrian Airlines, 31 October). Air Armenia, formerly an air cargo operator only, launched on 27 October passenger flights from Yerevan to six Russian destinations (including Moscow Vnukovo) with a fleet of two aircraft (A320-200 and B-737-500). By 2014, the airline plans to fly five passenger aircraft. With national flag carrier Armavia going bankrupt in April this year, Air Armenia becomes the main Armenian airline. The Armenian government has in the meantime decided to liberalize air traffic (Air Armenia, November). Israeli El Al reportedly launched its low-cost brand ‘Up’ with five European destinations to Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Larnaca and Kiev with a fleet of five B737 aircraft, effective March 2014. This decision resulted from the rising competition in the framework of the open-skies agreement between EU and Israel (IM151) (Haaretz, 26 November). Loss-making Alitalia reportedly looks to make circa 2,600 redundancies as part of its revised industrial plan. Air France-KLM which owns 25% of the airline confirmed it will not subscribe to the capital increase (IM155) arguing that financial restructuring measures were not fully met (Reuters, 18 November & Air France-KLM, 14 November). Routes, Alliances, Codeshares Norwegian is to establish its fifth base in Spain, adding Madrid to Alicante, Malaga, Las Palmas and Tenerife-Sur. In Summer 2014 the airline will launch six new routes from Madrid to Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Hamburg, Warsaw and London (Norwegian, 11 November). Aegean unveiled its expansion plans after its acquisition of Olympic Airways last month (IM156). The airline will add 15 new destinations from Athens in 2014 and operate a new base at Chania (Aegean Airlines, 31 October). Industry Monitor. Issue 157. 29/11/13 Page 3 © EUROCONTROL 2013 Note: IAG monthly pro-forma including Vueling in the baseline. Figure 3: Main carriers’ traffic statistics. bmi regional is reviewing its operations and will close three bases (Edinburgh, Birmingham, Manchester and drop five routes between November and January. The airline wants thereby to support its growing charter business and its new service Newcastle-Brussels (bmi regional, 28 October). Vueling has created a second connection hub. After Barcelona, Rome Fiumicino will serve seven new Italian domestic routes and 17 new direct international routes in Summer 2014. The airline will operate a fleet of eight A320-200 aircraft at Fiumicino (Vueling, 20 November). Vueling is reportedly to launch a new base at Brussels from May 2014 adding seven new routes from Brussels to Ibiza, Palma de Mallorca, Santiago de Compostela, Lisbon, Porto, Rome and Venice (routesonline, 6 November). Wizz Air is to establish Craiova as its fifth base in Romania using one airbus A320-200 and opening four new routes to Barcelona El Prat, Bologna, Rome Ciampino and Dortmund, effective July 2014 (Wizz Air, 13 November). Etihad acquired a 33% stake in Darwin Airline. The Swiss regional carrier will be rebranded Etihad Regional and will operate 21 new intra-European routes in Summer 2014. Its network will ultimately include six European gateways (Amsterdam, Belgrade, Düsseldorf, Geneva, Paris and Zurich) served by Etihad (Etihad Airways, 17 November). In its Summer 2014 schedule, Ryanair announced it will open 12 new routes at Stansted and 9 new routes at Dublin (Ryanair, 21 & 14 November). Ryanair opened a new base at Rome Fiumicino with a fleet of six aircraft and three new domestic routes to Catania, Palermo and Lamezia. The airline serves already six Italian routes from Rome Ciampino and intends to move many of these routes from Ciampino to Fiumicino. Ryanair will also launch two new international routes from Fiumicino to Brussels Zaventem and Barcelona El Prat (Ryanair, 26 November). Industry Monitor. Issue 157. 29/11/13 Page 4 © EUROCONTROL 2013 Note: IAG monthly pro-forma including Vueling in the baseline. Figure 4: Main carriers’ load factors. In February 2014 Ryanair will open a new base at Brussels Zaventem with four based aircraft and 10 new routes to Alicante, Barcelona, Ibiza, Lisbon, Malaga, Palma, Porto, Rome, Valencia and Venice (Ryanair, 27 November). SAS will launch 34 new routes in its Summer 2014 schedule, that is 14 routes from Sweden, 11 from Denmark and nine from Norway. The carrier also plans to open three new services, Copenhagen-Leeds/Bradford, Oslo-Aalborg and Oslo-Aberdeen (SAS, 25 November). Lufthansa Group will end its codeshare agreement with Turkish Airlines at the end of the winter schedule, explaining that it no longer makes commercial sense as Turkish is strongly expanding its range of flights in Germany. Turkish Airlines disapproves this unilateral decision (Turkish Airlines, 26 November). Alitalia is reportedly to codeshare with GOL (Brazil) on 20 Brazilian domestic routes via Rio and Sao Paulo, effective 29 November (routesonline, 6 November). Canadian Westjet is launching low-fares transatlantic flights from St. John's, Newfoundland to Dublin with seasonal service from 15 June to 5 October 2014 (Westjet, 15 November). Failures Low-cost Belle Air ceased operations on 25 November due to recession in the markets it operated. Albania’s first low-cost airline served 26 destinations mainly from Tirana to Italy, but also to Athens, Brussels, Heraklion and Stansted. Italian Blue Panorama will temporarily operate substitution flights from several Italian cities to Tirana. On 26 November, the Italian subsidiary, Belle Air Europe ceased operations as well. The airline operated flights from Pristina to Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and Sweden (Belle Air, 25 November). Spanish charter Cosmo Airlines ceased operations on 30 October. Industry Monitor. Issue 157. 29/11/13 Page 5 © EUROCONTROL 2013 Figure 5: Main carriers’ financial results 3Q13. Traffic statistics: October update Figure 3 and Figure 4 compare October 2013 figures with October 2012 figures.