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Tiger Airways & business recovery propels Australia’s golden triangle up rankings of world’s busiest

Analysis

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

Tokyo Haneda-Sapporo Chitose

2

Jeju-Seoul Gimpo

3

Fukuoka-Tokyo Haneda

4

Sydney-Melbourne

5

Beijing-Shanghai Hongqiao

6

Taipei Taoyuan-Hong Kong

7

Tokyo Haneda-Okinawa

8

Sao Paulo Congonhas-Rio De Janeiro Dumont

9

Tokyo Haneda-Osaka Itami

10

Delhi-Mumbai

11

Barcelona-Madrid

12

Sydney-Brisbane

13

Johannesburg Tambo-Cape Town

14

Singapore Changi-Jakarta

15

Jakarta-Surabaya

16

Hong Kong-Shanghai Pudong

17

Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City

18

Los Angeles-San Francisco

19

Guangzhou-Shanghai Hongqiao

20

Shenzhen-Beijing

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

Taipei-Hong Kong

6

Shanghai-Beijing

7

Seoul-Jeju

8

Sydney-Melbourne

9

Mumbai-Delhi

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

Sydney-Brisbane

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

Melbourne - Sydney

632 436

849 149

448 075 920

601 728 557

74.5

4 380

2

Brisbane - Sydney

337 139

444 831

253 865 667

334 957 743

75.8

2 437

3

Brisbane - Melbourne

226 159

306 007

313 064 823

423 749 530

73.9

1 826

4

Gold Coast - Sydney

194 927

247 299

132 550 360

168 163 320

78.8

1 409

5

Adelaide - Melbourne

188 154

242 471

120 983 022

155 908 853

77.6

1 512

6

Adelaide - Sydney

135 919

172 896

158 617 473

201 769 632

78.6

1 061

7

Melbourne - Perth

129 429

164 038

350 234 874

443 886 828

78.9

787

8

Gold Coast - Melbourne

126 388

150 109

168 096 040

199 644 970

84.2

822

9

Perth - Sydney

121 767

161 336

399 882 828

529 827 424

75.5

768

10

Hobart - Melbourne

98 004

124 371

60 566 472

76 861 278

78.8

718

11

Canberra - Sydney

94 775

145 102

22 366 900

34 244 072

65.3

1 560

12

Canberra - Melbourne

93 878

135 318

44 122 660

63 599 460

69.4

953

13

Brisbane - Cairns

89 858

121 933

124 992 478

169 608 803

73.7

730

14

Brisbane - Townsville

75 759

101 646

84 244 008

113 030 352

74.5

664

15

Launceston - Melbourne

66 151

89 170

31 487 876

42 444 920

74.2

624

16

Cairns - Sydney

62 572

89 614

123 329 412

176 629 194

69.8

507

17

Brisbane - Mackay

61 163

87 554

48 746 911

69 780 538

69.9

695

18

Brisbane - Perth

59 830

75 102

216 285 450

271 493 730

79.7

371

19

Adelaide - Brisbane

57 905

76 775

93 921 910

124 529 050

75.4

508

20

Brisbane - Rockhampton

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

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