Global Analysis

The total number of scheduled flights operating in January 2012 increases marginally by 1.86% against the corresponding period last year to 2,527,415.  Seat capacity recorded a greater increase of 2.88% compared to the same period last year.  Average aircraft size increases marginally by 1% from 125 to 126.  This could possibly be contributed to by airlines upgrading the operating fleet by deploying the Next Generation aircrafts such as A380s, B777-300ERs or B737-800s, replacing the older operating fleet.  Increasing average aircraft size has consistently been the key driver to seat capacity growth, especially in slot constrained airports.  A case in example is the development of Emirates’ A380 deployment to LHR.  In the latest aircraft deployment plan revealed by the carrier, Emirates will deploy A380 on all but one of its LHR scheduled daily services.

Regionally, ‘Within Central and South America’ is the only region that recorded double digit y-o-y growth in both schedule frequency and seat capacity.  The Middle East carriers continued to propel strong growth in the region.  Schedule frequency and seat capacity ‘To/From Middle East’ grow by 9.08% & 9.24% respectively.  On the other end, ‘To/from Africa’ region recorded the worst decline in both frequency and seat capacity, shedding schedule frequency by 6.58% and seat capacity by 5.69% respectively.  The political instability in Africa possibly caused a direct impact on the inter-region passenger traffic demand as the schedule frequency and seat capacity within the Africa region was not affected and continues to grow year-on-year. 

Asia Pacific remains a strong growth region for both inter-region and intra-region schedule frequency and seat capacity.  Europe is recording below par performance, with both inter-region and intra-region schedule frequency and seat capacity development performing below the worldwide average. 

Frequency within Europe declined by 2.11% while frequency ‘To/From Europe’ shed by 0.57%.  Seat capacity within Europe decreased 1.09% but seat capacity ‘To/From Europe’ increased marginally by 0.18%, possibly contributed by the bigger aircraft operated by medium / long haul carriers from outside the Europe region.  The gap between the Asia Pacific and North America in intra-region market has further widened with Asia Pacific now recording 39% more intra-region seat capacity compared to North America since overtaking the North America as the world’s largest intra-region market in 2009.

Source: OAG
 

Source: OAG
 

Source: OAG
 

Major Hub Airports:

Atlanta remained the undisputed largest airport in the world by both schedule frequency and seat capacity, although it recorded decline in both categories.  ATL’s schedule frequency declined by 3.17% while the seat capacity shed 1.51% compared to the same period last year. 

In seat capacity terms, Beijing has cemented its position as the second largest seat capacity provider in the world, with 8,449,273 seats offered, a remarkable 4.06% growth over the corresponding period last year.  Beijing is also pulling away from its nearest competitor London Heathrow, almost doubling its seat capacity variance from 323,690 seats last year to 612,732 seats this year.  Beijing is also fast catching up on schedule frequency with 2.67% y-o-y growth, the second strongest annual growth rate for the world’s Top 10 airport, behind LAX.  Nevertheless, it’ll be more challenging for PEK to continue its strong growth on schedule capacity as the PEK airport is highly constrained. PEK and LAX are the only 2 airports that recorded growth in schedule frequency within the Top 10 airports globally.  London Heathrow is expected to continue to grow in the seat capacity category as more carriers upgrade their capacity on the LHR services, but the APD may slow down the growth in the passenger traffic demand.

In seat capacity terms, Bangkok overtook Hong Kong as the 6th largest seat capacity provider with a strong 14.44% y-o-y growth to 6,329,628 seats, and similarly, Dubai overtook Los Angeles for the Top 8 position with 12.26% y-o-y growth to 6,245,461 seats. Singapore Changi and Jakarta airport are the other 2 airports that record double digit growth in seat capacity.  Collectively, Bangkok, Changi, Jakarta and Hong Kong steered the strong growth in the Asia region.

Based on the annual growth rate, Montevideo (MVD) airport achieved the strongest growth for schedule frequency (81%) and second strongest growth for seat capacity (46%), behind Vilnius (VNO) which recorded 48% growth.  On the contrary, Tripoli continues its dismal performance with 86% decline in schedule frequency and 84% decrease in seat capacity. 

Based on the absolute numbers, Istanbul maintained its aggressive growth with additional 830,881 seats added.  Bangkok followed closely with additional 798,563 seats introduced to its network.  On schedule frequency, Bangkok led Istanbul by additional 4,772 flights to 4,698 schedule frequency.  Within the Top 10 ranking of the incremental number of seats, Asia commanded 6 places contributed by the major hub airports, especially the 4 South East Asia representatives of Bangkok, Changi, Jakarta and Manila.  Collectively, these 4 airports added close to 2.6mil seats compared to the same period last year

Regional Analysis:

Africa:

Seat availability in Jan 2012 for intra Africa region gained marginally by 2.78% y-o-y.  24% decline in the seat capacity within the North Africa region dragged the strong growth recorded by all other sub Africa regions, led by 25% growth Within Central / Western Africa region. Similarly, poor performance by North Africa region (-11.58% y-o-y) in the inter-region seat capacity dragged the overall performance To/From Africa region seat capacity, as the overall inter-region seat capacity declined 5.69% against the same period last year. 

Schedule frequency within Africa gained 3.67% compared to the corresponding period last year.  Central and Western Africa achieve the strongest growth of 23.37%.  North Africa is the only sub Africa region that registered a decline in schedule frequency within the sub region.  Inter-region schedule frequency performed weakly, with Eastern Africa and Southern Africa being the 2 sub regions that registered marginal growth of 2.06% and 1.18% respectively, while the other 2 sub regions in Central / Western Africa and North Africa recorded a decline.  The unstable situation in North Africa has affected the traffic demand to / from the region and carriers are reluctant to restore the full schedule / seat capacity. 

Over the last 5 years since 2008, intra Africa sub region schedule frequency has increased, except for North Africa, which declined marginally by 0.11% compared to the schedule frequency in Jan 2008 due to the significant decline recorded over the past 12 months.  The seat capacity for all intra Africa sub regions also increased except for North Africa. 

The inter-region schedule frequency also increased over the last 5 years for all sub Africa regions, led by 36.25% increase To/From Eastern Africa.  Eastern Africa also led in the seat capacity increase, recording 36.15% growth over the last 5 years.

London is the biggest inter-continental route from Africa region by seat capacity with 630,520 seats in January 2012, while Paris Charles de Gaulle recorded the highest schedule frequency with 2,710 services in Jan-2012.

North America: 

Intra North America market continued to decline after a marginal rebound in January 2011.  Schedule frequency declined 3.16% compared to same period last year, or nearly 15% compared to January 2008.  Seat capacity decreased 2.73% compared to corresponding period last year, or more than 12% against January 2008. 

Nevertheless, schedule frequency inter-region To/From North America increased marginally by 1.10% over the last 5 years, or 4.10% against January 2011.  Meanwhile, Seat Capacity increased 2.20% over 5 years since January 2008.

London Heathrow is the biggest Western Europe market to North America, with 6,032 schedule frequency in Jan 2012 which contributes to 1,659,889 seats.  Meanwhile, Tokyo is the biggest Asia Pacific market to North America, but the schedule frequency is less than half of the London Heathrow statistics, with only 3,000 schedule frequency and 853,657 seats.

The charts above showed that the seat capacity and schedule frequency within the North American passenger market has been consistently declining over the last 5 years, except for a marginal rebound / improvement in 2011.  Nevertheless, the schedule frequency and seat capacity has declined further in January 2012 to a level even lower than January 2010.

Tokyo remains the biggest contributor of Asia Pacific seat capacity to North America, followed by Seoul Incheon.  Beijing and Shanghai are fast catching up with the significant growth rates.  Shanghai led the Asia Pacific field with 79% growth over the last 5 years, while Beijing grew 28% in the corresponding period.

Asia Pacific:

Schedule frequency and seat capacity to/from Asia Pacific increased by 7.29% and 6.29% respectively against the same period last year.  Over the last 5 years, both schedule frequency and seat capacity has increased by more than 20%.  Growth rates within the Asia Pacific region are even greater.  Schedule frequency and seat capacity within Asia Pacific increased by more than 7% against the same period last year while both indicators recorded close to 30% growth over the last 5 years.

Domestic Mainland China (excluding SARs Hong Kong & Macau) seat capacity increased by 10% year-on-year to over 30 mil seats.  The international seat capacity increased even greater by 14% against the same period last year.  The highly competitive High Speed Rail services has propelled the major carriers to reduce some of its domestic services affected by the High Speed Rail network, and redeploy its narrow body aircrafts to operate new regional international services, e.g. to North Asia or South East Asia. 

All sub-region schedule frequency and seat capacity recorded healthy growth.  South East Asia led the pack with 13% year-on-year growth and a significant 51% growth over the last 5 years.  Exponential growth by the low cost carriers in the region has contributed to the strong growth.  Economic power house in North East Asia has also seen high growth rate of 30% in seat capacity growth over the last 5 years.

It is also good to note that the international seat capacity to/from Japan has been restored to pre- Earthquake / Tsunami level

Europe:

Schedule frequency To/From Europe and Within Europe declined marginally in January 2012.  Inter-region seat capacity to/from Europe is the only indicator that recorded growth, albeit very marginally by 0.18%.  The marginal growth is contributed by medium and long haul carriers who increase the seat capacity to slots-constrained hub airports in Europe by upgrading the aircraft fleet deployment with the next generation aircrafts such as the A380s. Seat Capacity within Europe also decreased by 1.09% against the same period last year. 

Comparing against the same period last year, schedule frequency and seat capacity to/from Eastern Europe recorded the strongest growth rate.  Over the last 5 years period, schedule frequency and seat capacity to/from European Union recorded the strongest growth rate.

Within Europe, all indicators on schedule frequency and seat capacity showed decline when compared against the corresponding period last year, or over the historical 5 years period.

All three sub region registered decline in January 2012 against the same period last year.  Western Europe and European Union recorded decline in 2009 before rebound in 2010 and 2011.

Printer friendly version:   OAG FACTS Executive Summary January 2012

OAG FACTS was compiled by ASM using OAG data.