Guangzhou Baiyun Airport

The A380 becomes mainstream, with 103 now in service: which airlines, destinations, stage lengths?

There are 103 A380s in service as of early May-2013. Emirates has 33 and Singapore Airlines has 19, so when assessing network scheduling, these two and their hubs predominate: of the 1,048 weekly A380 flights, 402 are from Emirates alone. Dubai and Singapore airport see the most A380 flights.

But there are some less predictable statistics. The airport to see the most A380 operators is Hong Kong followed by Paris and Los Angeles. The largest A380 destination that is not (yet) an A380-hub is London Heathrow. The UK and USA are the most common A380 destinations after Australia, Singapore and the UAE. Asia, not the Middle East, sees the most A380 flights; South America sees none. Guangzhou-Shanghai Pudong is the shortest A380 route at 1,202km while Los Angeles-Melbourne is the longest at 12,751km. Qantas and Lufthansa have the highest average sector length while Thai Airways is placing the most number of cycles – about two – on its aircraft per day. Qantas and Air France are placing the least (just over one).

China airport wrap: Beijing still not #1 while western China airports lead double-digit growth

A slowdown in Chinese traffic at the end of 2012 resulting from decreased activity in line with the government’s leadership transition saw Beijing Capital Airport miss a widely-held projection that it would overtake Atlanta Hartsfield airport for the title of world’s largest passenger airport. Beijing remained in the #2 spot after breathtaking growth that saw it enter the world’s 10 largest airports only in 2006.

Growth at Beijing and other major Chinese airports will slow as slots become increasingly difficult to secure. The highest growth amongst major Chinese airports is occurring in China’s west and northeast regions, home to airports including Chongqing, Shenyang and Urumqi.

They are a fraction of the size of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, which account for 31% of passenger movements, but will increasingly garner international attention.

Jetstar misses another opportunity in Singapore as it reduces focus on China market

This is the second report in a three-part series on Jetstar’s Singapore-based operations, which includes Jetstar Asia, Jetstar Airways and Valuair. The first report analysed the booming Singapore-Indonesia market, where Jetstar is now looking to expand after several years of flat capacity.

This report looks at Jetstar’s position in the Singapore-China market while the third part will look at the overall outlook for Jetstar Asia. Jetstar has significantly cut back in the China market since the end of 2011, reversing a strategy from 2010 and 2011 that focused on using its Singapore hub to pursue rapid growth throughout mainland China. This strategy included using Jetstar Asia’s A320 fleet to operate medium-haul flights to southern China while using Jetstar Airways’ A330 fleet to access markets in northern China that are beyond narrowbody range from Singapore.

China Southern Airlines A380 to Sydney - Part 2: competitors to feel more pricing pressure

This is the second part of a report on China Southern's A380 deployment to Sydney, a move that will gain public interest from the angle of a previously obscure carrier bringing in the world's largest aircraft to one of the world's most iconic cities. While the capacity increase is large at 41%, the 1,554 additional weekly seats have been put in by or been exceeded by other carriers serving Sydney in recent times.

What makes China Southern's A380 deployment to Sydney notable – and worrisome – is not the sheer number of seats but the low yields they will be priced at. China Southern is offering return economy tickets from Australia to Europe during the European summer – before the A380's entry and capacity increase – for as low as AUD1,102 (USD1,143), half the price of typical fares only two years ago. Business class fares have seen similar percentage cuts over the last two years, with return business class to Europe for AUD5,819 (USD6,034).

Yield pressure for China Southern Airlines as it deploys A380 to Sydney

While China Southern's announcement to serve Sydney from Oct-2013 with the A380 may be good for Australia at large, for China Southern there are limited upsides besides strategic ambition and slowly ending its negative perception from not being able to use the A380 in international markets.

The carrier will replace one A330 Sydney service with the A380, generating a 41% increase in capacity, which will likely make the service loss-making for some time. Sharper increases will occur in the premium cabins, where daily business class seats will rise from 48 to 100 and first class from four to eight.

The increase in capacity will occur in an already over-saturated Australia/NZ-Asia market, which is seeing increased capacity from AirAsia X, Air New Zealand, Emirates, Qantas, Scoot and Singapore Airlines.

China Southern's A380 operation is still struggling as most remain restricted to domestic routes

This is the second part of a report looking at China Southern's A380 operation. While the carrier waits for all interested parties to sign off on its Beijing-Paris joint operation with rival Air China, it still has three A380s currently on domestic routes for which it needs to find suitable long-haul services.

In addition to a daily Guangzhou-Los Angeles return service that commenced in Oct-2012, China Southern has double daily Guangzhou-Beijing and daily Guangzhou-Shanghai Pudong services. China Southern has scale in those markets, unlike its brief A380 service between Hong Kong and Beijing, where losses ultimately saw China Southern replace the daily A380 with a daily A321 flight.

Long-haul routes to Frankfurt and New York would be most viable for China Southern's A380, but would probably require cooperation with Air China if to be served out of the preferred hub of Beijing. China Southern has casually floated the idea of A380 services to London and Sydney, but deployment there would face spool-up challenges.