Tiger Airways & business recovery propels Australia’s golden triangle up rankings of world’s busiest
Passenger numbers on the Melbourne-Sydney route (Australia's busiest and now the world's fourth busiest) surged 18.5% year-on-year in May-2010, reflecting a recovery in business travel and Tiger Airways' expansion on the route since Jul-2009. The increase was well ahead of the 5.3% increase in Australian domestic airline passengers for the month and signals the revitalisation of the route after several years of stagnation under the former Qantas-Virgin Blue duopoly.
The Sydney-Melbourne and Sydney-Brisbane routes have catapulted up the rankings of the world's busiest, from 8th and 17th at the start of 2009 to 4th and 12th currently. Only the Tokyo Haneda-Sapporo Chitose and Fukuoka-Tokyo Haneda routes in Japan and the Jeju-Seoul Gimpo sector in South Korea are busier.
See the full Top 50 World's Busiest Routes Ranking at the CAPA Routes Changes page
World's Top 20 Busiest Routes: Jul-2010
Rank | Route |
---|---|
1 |
|
2 |
|
3 |
|
4 |
|
5 |
|
6 |
|
7 |
|
8 |
Sao Paulo Congonhas-Rio De Janeiro Dumont |
9 |
|
10 |
|
11 |
Barcelona-Madrid |
12 |
|
13 |
|
14 |
Singapore Changi-Jakarta |
15 |
Jakarta-Surabaya |
16 |
|
17 |
|
18 |
Los Angeles-San Francisco |
19 |
|
20 |
World's Top 20 Busiest Routes: Jan-2009
Rank | Route |
---|---|
1 |
Tokyo-Sapporo |
2 |
Tokyo-Osaka |
3 |
Tokyo-Fukuoka |
4 |
Sao Paulo-Rio De Janeiro |
5 |
|
6 |
Shanghai-Beijing |
7 |
Seoul-Jeju |
8 |
|
9 |
|
10 |
Tokyo-Okinawa |
11 |
Johannesburg-Cape Town |
12 |
London-Dublin |
13 |
Rome-Milan |
14 |
Atlanta-New York |
15 |
New York-Chicago |
16 |
Madrid-Barcelona |
17 |
|
18 |
New York-London |
19 |
New York-Boston |
20 |
Shanghai-Hong Kong |
Australian domestic market in (strong) growth mode, load factors falling
The Australian domestic market started contracting around Sep-2008, but aggressive capacity moves by airlines this year to defend market shares have seen the market grow every month since Jan-2010. Traffic growth lagged the 8.2% increase in capacity last month, resulting in a reduction in average domestic load factor from 76.9% to 73.9%. Fares are also under considerable pressure. See related report: Australian premium and discount fares slide further as competition thrives
The other major Australian domestic routes include Brisbane-Melbourne and Gold Coast-Sydney - the latter growing 16.2% year-on-year. Passenger numbers are also surging on the Adelaide-Brisbane (+17%), Port Macquarie-Sydney (+16.1%) and Adelaide-Sydney (+13.5%) sectors.
Australian Top 20 domestic routes: Major Australian Airlines, Traffic-on-board-by-stage passengers: May 2010
|
City-Pair (a) |
Revenue Pax (b) |
Available seats |
RPKs |
ASKs |
LF % |
Aircraft trips |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
632 436 |
849 149 |
448 075 920 |
601 728 557 |
74.5 |
4 380 |
|
2 |
337 139 |
444 831 |
253 865 667 |
334 957 743 |
75.8 |
2 437 |
|
3 |
226 159 |
306 007 |
313 064 823 |
423 749 530 |
73.9 |
1 826 |
|
4 |
194 927 |
247 299 |
132 550 360 |
168 163 320 |
78.8 |
1 409 |
|
5 |
188 154 |
242 471 |
120 983 022 |
155 908 853 |
77.6 |
1 512 |
|
6 |
135 919 |
172 896 |
158 617 473 |
201 769 632 |
78.6 |
1 061 |
|
7 |
129 429 |
164 038 |
350 234 874 |
443 886 828 |
78.9 |
||
8 |
126 388 |
150 109 |
168 096 040 |
199 644 970 |
84.2 |
822 |
|
9 |
121 767 |
161 336 |
399 882 828 |
529 827 424 |
75.5 |
768 |
|
10 |
98 004 |
124 371 |
60 566 472 |
76 861 278 |
78.8 |
718 |
|
11 |
94 775 |
145 102 |
22 366 900 |
34 244 072 |
65.3 |
1 560 |
|
12 |
93 878 |
135 318 |
44 122 660 |
63 599 460 |
69.4 |
953 |
|
13 |
89 858 |
121 933 |
124 992 478 |
169 608 803 |
73.7 |
730 |
|
14 |
75 759 |
101 646 |
84 244 008 |
113 030 352 |
74.5 |
664 |
|
15 |
66 151 |
89 170 |
31 487 876 |
42 444 920 |
74.2 |
624 |
|
16 |
62 572 |
89 614 |
123 329 412 |
176 629 194 |
69.8 |
507 |
|
17 |
61 163 |
87 554 |
48 746 911 |
69 780 538 |
69.9 |
695 |
|
18 |
59 830 |
75 102 |
216 285 450 |
271 493 730 |
79.7 |
371 |
|
19 |
57 905 |
76 775 |
93 921 910 |
124 529 050 |
75.4 |
508 |
|
20 |
54 280 |
74 315 |
28 117 040 |
38 495 170 |
73.0 |
763 |
|
Total top routes |
3,698,738 |
4,990,819 |
4,180,810,137 |
5,567,333,802 |
75.1 |
33,381 |
|
All Others |
531,218 |
847,553 |
589,332,267 |
884,252,728 |
66.6 |
15,929 |
|
Total Domestic Network (c) |
4,229,956 |
5,838,372 |
4,770,142,404 |
6,451,586,530 |
73.9 |
49,310 |
Share movements: Tiger surges, Virgin Blue falls and AirAsia flat
In trading yesterday, Tiger Airways surged 3.2% in Singapore trade, while Virgin Blue eased 1.6%. AirAsia was flat.
RBS Equities issued a note on three investor concerns about AirAsia, noting:
- Heavy gearing is productively employed;
- Frequent account restatements reflect growing other income categories;
- Associates are improving profitability fast.
RBS stated it expects the investor focus to shift to AirAsia's "robust earnings growth at cheap valuation".
Selected LCCs daily share price movements (% change): 19-Jul-2010