What do LCCs want of airports? How airport-airline cooperation can accelerate regional growth

Asia's low cost airlines have had to fit into existing - and often irrelevant - infrastructure to prove themselves. In the early 2000s, low cost airlines in Asia were regarded on a scale between foolish and bankrupt-inducing.

In the early days of LCC growth Singapore Airlines confidently predicted the early demise of the genre. Today LCCs account for 60% of all seats in Southeast Asia. Now SIA even has two LCCs in its group, including a long haul operation, Scoot, that is in the vanguard of widebody LCC flying. Scoot is also now taking over routes from full service sister Silk Air.

LCCs are here to stay. And they have specific needs from airports that typically were constructed to fulfil the requirements of full service airlines. That is inhibiting growth and the accompanying regional economic development. A CAPA conference in Sep-2015 attracted major LCC and airport CEOs to review common goals.