The EUROCONTROL bulletin on air transport trends

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1 Industry Monitor The EUROCONTROL bulletin on air transport trends Issue N /11/2015 European flights increased by 2.5% in September reaching the highest growth rate in Preliminary data for October show an increase of 1.2% in flights on the year-ago month. Updated seven-year forecast is for a flight growth of 1.6% in 2015 in Europe, mostly unchanged compared with the February forecast is expected to see a growth of 2.3% in annual terms. Oil prices remained stable at a monthly average of 44 per barrel in October. EUROCONTROL statistics and forecasts 1 Other statistics and forecasts 4 Passenger airlines 4 Airports 7 Cargo 7 Aircraft manufacturing 8 Oil 8 Fares 8 EUROCONTROL statistics and forecasts European flights (ESRA EUROCONTROL Statistical Reference Area) increased by 2.5% in September 2015 compared with September 2014 and were in line with the baseline forecast. This was the highest growth rate since the beginning of the year although artificially inflated (by circa 1 percentage point) as a result of a 14-day industrial action in France in September Preliminary data for October 2015 show an increase of 1.2% in flights on the year-ago month (Figure 1). As was the case for all months this year, the low-cost segment maintained its dominant position with a growth rate of 6% and was followed by the traditional scheduled segment which grew 2.1% in September 2015 (vs. September 2014). Business aviation decreased by 4% (on same month in 2014), while all-cargo remained stable. The charter segment showed a limited decline of 3% in September (vs September 2014). France was the main contributor to local traffic (excluding overflights) on the European network in September (+284 flights/day compared to September 2014 but note the comment above). Excluding France, Turkey remained the main contributor to traffic, adding some 272 daily flights per day (nearly twice August s contribution) thanks to arrival and departure flows but also to renewed growth in domestic flows. Also among the top five contributors were UK (+134 flights/day), Spain (+121 flights/day) and Italy (+93 flights/day). The vast majority of other European States have contributed to the network growth. Norway hit by the oil crisis removed most flights (70 daily) from the network in September due to weakness in its arrival/departure traffic. (Figure 2). Comprehensive statistics on flights are available from the STATFOR dashboard 1 (EUROCONTROL, 1 Industry Monitor. Issue /11/2015 Page 1 EUROCONTROL 2015

2 Figure 1: Monthly European Traffic and Forecast (Sep15). Figure 2: Main changes to traffic on the European network in September. Based on preliminary data from airlines for delays from all causes, 43% of flights were delayed on departure (>= 5 minutes) in September 2015, this was an increase of two percentage points when compared with the same month in The average all-causes delay per movement in September 2015 increased to 11.3 minutes per flight. Further analysis of the delay reasons shows that reactionary increased by 0.5 minute with airline delays remaining at 3.2 minutes per flight. Airport ATFCM delays increased to 0.9 minute per flight in September 2015, with both Istanbul Atatürk and Sabiha Gökçen airports continuing to suffer from airport capacity delays as well as weather. (Figure3) (EUROCONTROL, Industry Monitor. Issue /11/2015 Page 2 EUROCONTROL 2015

3 Breakdown of all-causes delay per flight Percentage of flights delayed on departure Figure 3: Delay statistics (all-causes, airline-reported delay preliminary data for September 2015). Figure 4: Flight forecast detail for 2015 in Europe (ESRA). The update of the seven-year forecast of flight movements is for 1.6% (±0.4 pp) more flights for Europe in 2015 (detail per state in Figure 4) (mostly unchanged compared with the forecast published in February). As expected in the February 2015 forecast, European traffic in 2015 remained on average 1.2% above the 2014 traffic levels (January- August period). More sustained growth rates emerged during summer months, nearing the 2% levels. This was notably driven by the low-cost segment. Since the previous forecast published in February, the oil price, load factors of European carriers and the traffic development per market segment remained in line with the situation observed end of The economic outlook remained as well mainly unchanged at European level. However at state level, we observed some significant changes in both Northern and Southern Europe. In parallel, several events, either as a continuation from last year or as result of more recent developments (e.g. unit rates increase in Germany), led airlines to change their routes, affecting overflight growth in the different States involved. Moreover, the recent events in Tunisia have led to some changes in tourism destinations for the summer period. In 2016, the forecast foresees a growth of 2.3% (±1.9 pp) for Europe in annual terms. The forecast is for 11.2 million IFR movements in Europe in 2021, 19% more than in Industry Monitor. Issue /11/2015 Page 3 EUROCONTROL 2015

4 Figure 5: Main carriers traffic statistics. Other statistics and forecasts ACI reported that overall passenger counts at European airports were up 5.1% in August 2015 (vs. August 2014) with overall aircraft movements growing by 2.6% (ACI Europe, 7 IATA reported that overall passenger counts at European airports increased by 6% in August 2015 (vs. August 2014) whereas aircraft movements were up 4.7%. The total passenger load factor reached a record-high 87.5% (IATA, 1 Passenger airlines Traffic statistics: September update Figure 5 and Figure 6 compare September 2015 figures with September 2014 figures. In addition to the number of passengers (PAX), passenger capacity is measured in available seat kilometres (ASK) and traffic is measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK). Capacity, costs and jobs SAS will sell its subsidiary Blue1 to Dublin-based CityJet with the aim of outsourcing and further expanding its regional route network. In line with this agreement, SAS will wet lease eight new Bombardier CRJ900 regional aircraft from Cityjet as from March 2016 (SAS, 1 Irish regional airline, CityJet has placed an order for 15 Superjet SSJ100 aircraft. This firm order plus 10 options is meant to replace CityJet s fleet of 18 Avro RJ85 aircraft. Aircraft deliveries will take place between 2016 and 2017 (CityJet, 13 Industry Monitor. Issue /11/2015 Page 4 EUROCONTROL 2015

5 Figure 6: Main carriers load factors. Low-cost Norwegian has placed an order for 19 Boeing B787-9 Dreamliner aircraft to bring to 38 the number of its fleet of Dreamliners by The new order which also includes options for 10 additional B787-9 aircraft will enable the airline to expand its long-haul network. Norwegian currently operates eight Dreamliners from its London Gatwick base (Norwegian, 22 Finnair has become the first European operator of the Airbus A350 XWB aircraft with the delivery of its first unit on 7 October. The airline ordered a total of 19 A350 aircraft to be delivered by The A350 fleet is part of Finnair s strategy to expand its route network in Asia which is meant to double by Finnair A350 s first long-haul service will fly the Helsinki-Shanghai route on 21 November (Finnair, 7 easyjet has announced the recruitment of circa 300 pilots and 800 cabin crew over the next twelve months after opening its new training centre at Gatwick airport (EasyJet, 14 Air France-KLM has sold six pairs of slots at London Heathrow to its joint venture partner Delta which already operated these slot pairs as they were leased from Air France (Delta, 21 Aeroflot s low-cost subsidiary, Pobeda will reportedly start flights from Moscow to Dresden, Cologne/Bonn, Bratislava, Minsk and seasonal flights to Chambery. The Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) has authorised the airline to operate international flights. Pobeda started domestic operations in December 2014 (ruaviation, Routes, Alliances, Codeshares SAS will launch eight new routes in summer 2016; from Copenhagen to Reykjavik, Vienna, Krakow, Faro; from Stockholm to Gdansk, Mykonos; from Aarhus to Palma de Mallorca and from Stavanger to Paris (SAS, 14 Ryanair will open a new base at Corfu with one aircraft and 11 new routes to Birmingham, Bratislava, Budapest, Cologne, Rome, Katowice, Poznan, Pisa, Rzeszow, Venice and Warsaw, effective April 2016 (Ryanair, 14 Industry Monitor. Issue /11/2015 Page 5 EUROCONTROL 2015

6 Figure 7: Brent and Kerosene prices. Ryanair will open a new base in Ibiza with one aircraft and two new destinations to Turin and Venice (Treviso), effective April 2016 (Ryanair, 29 Brussels Airlines expands its network with seven new routes in winter to Tenerife, Las Palmas, Faro, Bremen, Billund, Zagreb and Accra (Ghana) (Brussels Airlines, Spanish low-cost Volotea will launch up to 38 routes from a number of its bases in France and Italy in summer 2016 season (Volotea, In 2016 easyjet will launch 10 new routes from its new base in Venice where the airline will base four A320 aircraft. The new destinations include Edinburgh, Prague, Bristol, Copenhagen, Olbia, Stuttgart, Bordeaux, Mahon, Mykonos and Santorini. The airline will close its Rome Fiumicino base in April 2016 (IM174) (routesonline, 9 Vueling will base two more aircraft (11 in total) at its Rome Fiumicino base with the start of the summer 2016 schedule. IAG s low-cost subsidiary will then launch 13 new routes from Fiumicino to Geneva, Zürich, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo, Manchester, Edinburg, Tallinn, Kiev, Riga, Fuerteventura, Tenerife and Kalamata (Greece) (routesonline, 6 Failures Russia s second largest airline, Transaero ceased operations on 26 October after negotiations with Aeroflot to acquire a 75% stake in the carrier failed earlier in September. Airlines from the Aeroflot Group are currently meant to ensure the carriage of Transaero passengers. The Russian Group claims 95% of the tickets sold for a flight operating before mid- December 2015 (Aeroflot, 25 october) Industry Monitor. Issue /11/2015 Page 6 EUROCONTROL 2015

7 Figure 8: Deflated ticket prices in Europe. Airports Passenger traffic and aircraft movements during the third quarter of 2015 at top five European airports (based on number of departures) compared with the same period a year ago were as follows (growth on 3Q2014): Passenger traffic Aircraft movements 1. London Heathrow 21.4 million (+3.9%) 124K (+1.2%) 2. Paris CDG 19.2 million (+8.4%*) 129K (+5.3%*) 3. Frankfurt 18.4 million (+2.9%) 129K (+0.6%) 4. Istanbul Atatürk 17.8 million (+13.8%) 122K (+9.3%) 5. Amsterdam Schiphol 17.3 million (+6.5%) 125K (+2.5%) (source: airport reports). *Note: significant impact of Air France pilots strike on traffic in September 2014 distorts the growth Construction of new Terminal 3 at Frankfurt has started and will be able to handle 14 million passengers a year when it opens in 2022 (Fraport, 5 Cargo Cargolux is reportedly to set up a subsidiary in China with five Boeing B747-8F freighters to start flights in 2017 on transpacific routes between US and China. Cargolux already operates out of a hub in China (Zhengzhou) and serves Luxembourg, Baku and Chicago (Reuters, 29 September). Industry Monitor. Issue /11/2015 Page 7 EUROCONTROL 2015

8 Aircraft manufacturing China Aviation Supplies Holding has placed a firm order for 100 Airbus A320 aircraft and 30 Airbus A330 aircraft. Current Airbus fleet with Chinese operators amounts to circa 1,200 aircraft among which 1,000 A320s and 160 A330s aircraft (Airbus, 29 Oil Oil prices remained stable at a monthly average of 44 per barrel in October. Converted indices for Kerosene and Brent are shown in Figure 7. Fares Deflated ticket prices in Europe increased by 3.5% in September year-on-year, based on preliminary values. This is above the trend of 1.2% (12-month trailing average) shown in Figure 8 (Eurostat, 16 Note: to eliminate the influence of inflation on euro figures, the ticket price is deflated with a price index. The STATFOR deflated ticket prices are estimated in 2005 constant euros European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL) This document is published by EUROCONTROL for information purposes. It may be copied in whole or in part, provided that EUROCONTROL is mentioned as the source and it is not used for commercial purposes (i.e. for financial gain). The information in this document may not be modified without prior written permission from EUROCONTROL. STATFOR, the EUROCONTROL Statistics and Forecast Service statfor.info@eurocontrol.int Industry Monitor. Issue /11/2015 Page 8 EUROCONTROL 2015