Faro Airport

Portugal airport privatisation moving forward

While neighbouring Spain has temporarily abandoned its attempt to privatise its two largest airports, Portugal's Government has selected four investment banks to oversee the privatisation of state airline TAP Portugal and the airport operator Aeroportos de Portugal SA (ANA).

The privatisation of the former will impact the latter, as potential bidders for TAP could, post-acquisition, look to partially disband the carrier's Portugese hubs in favour of concentrated operations at, say, Madrid, if International Airlines Group (IAG) bids and is successful. TAP's prime asset is its network into Brazil. Owing to TAP's position in effectively the last major European cities before reaching the Atlantic, TAP can conveniently collect traffic from across Europe to feed its Brazil (and increasingly African) flights. Madrid is not much further inland and would offer the same hub benefits as well as allow Iberia and TAP to consolidate their under-performing short-haul networks. Moving large amounts of TAP traffic out of Portugal is a dent in ANA's appeal.

Airports struggle with life after Ryanair

Ryanair has been cancelling or suspending services at a wide range of airports across Europe, including in countries where it is growing. Is there any discernible strategy here or is it no more than coincidence, as a result of too many disagreements with airports? What future prospects are there for smaller airports when Ryanair decides to quit?

Poor future prospects for Irish regional airports – any opportunity for a private sector saviour?

For a variety of reasons Dublin Airport’s annual passenger traffic may have fallen from 24 million to 18 million over the last three years, but it still dominates the entire Irish aviation landscape, with its influence spreading into Northern Ireland. Amidst arguments over the efficacy of public service obligation routes connecting some of Ireland’s remote airports, the future seems bleak for most of them as Dublin is increasingly accessible by road. Dublin is only three hours from places like Sligo and Knock - and a Metro line to the airport is to be built that would connect at the main rail stations. Calls for some form of privatisation at some of the airports are becoming more strident, but would any investor perceive a long term future for them?

End of an era: Ryanair continues shift away from UK/Ireland

Ryanair, the second largest carrier in the UK, announced plans to reduce UK winter capacity by 16% from Nov-2010, stating the decision will result in the loss of more than 2 million passengers at UK airports over winter 2010 on a year-on-year basis.