Lyon Saint-Exupéry Airport

Transavia France is spreading its wings to regional airports in its home market

Air France has earmarked its Paris Orly Airport-based hybrid carrier Transavia.com to take a larger role in its short/medium-haul network, which necessitates a dramatic shake-up in order to safeguard the sustainability of parent company Air France-KLM. Transavia.com France will launch new routes from its home base at Orly and from three regional French airports – Nantes, Lille-Lesquin and Lyon – as it seeks to defend Air France’s dominant position in these airports against the increasing inroads of LCCs.

easyJet has a base at Paris Orly and at Lyon-Saint Exupéry Airport while Europe’s newest LCC, Volotea, opened a base at Nantes Atlantique Airport on 01-Jun-2012 and has announced route expansions from Lille. If Volotea follows up on its stated intentions, its network will inflate to 20 routes from Nantes and bring the capacity share of LCCs at the airport to over 40%.

Transavia France was founded in Nov-2006 as an offshoot of the Dutch charter/low-cost carrier Transavia Airlines, a wholly owned subsidiary of KLM, to re-enter the leisure market from France to countries in the Mediterranean basin.

Lyon Antoine de Saint-Exupery Airport: Pride of Lyon, poised to grow

On several occasions lately CAPA's Airport Investor Monthly (subscription publication) has argued the case for the UK’s regional Birmingham Airport to take on greater national level gateway responsibility.

Birmingham’s equivalent in France is Lyon; indeed the two cities are twinned as ‘partner cities’ and their annual passenger traffic is very similar. Lyon also aspires to a greater degree of national economic and air transport significance although, unlike its British counterpart, it is not so active in letting its message be heard. it also has transnational competition, in this case from just across the Swiss border.

European woes force changes for the better at Indian Ocean carriers, with Air Austral the latest

Hardest hit from the European economic situation, aside from the carriers that have collapsed, are far away from continental Europe in the Indian Ocean, which contains the self-proclaimed Vanilla Islands grouping of countries: La Reunion, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles. These nations' carriers are largely dependent on European leisure traffic, which has evaporated in the dual threat of weakening economies and high fuel prices that provide no stimulation to whatever demand is left.

The starkness of the situation has been demonstrated most recently by Air Austral, which over the northern winter will reduce its long-haul network to a single destination and will postpone – or possibly cancel – its order for two Airbus A380s, following it being unable to pay for a new Boeing 777 awaiting delivery. Air Austral is also looking to partner with Air Mauritius to maintain a connection to Australia, a further sign that the situation in Europe is forcing the Vanilla Island carriers to make medium/long-term strategy changes that will finally strengthen them. Etihad Airways earlier this year acquired a stake in Air Seychelles and is now lending management oversight to the Seychelles flag carrier while the region's other carriers have conducted overdue network reviews.

Air France looks to regional points to counter LCC, TGV threat

Air France has announced plans to move away from its Paris-centric strategy and moved into regional French market in a bid to counter the growing threat of low-cost carriers in its home market, which remains one of Europe’s few remaining spaces for growth in the sector.

bmibaby ceases Cardiff and Manchester operations to expand at Belfast, East Midlands, Birmingham

bmibaby stated it would cease all operations from Cardiff and Manchester Airports at the end of the summer 2011 schedule. As a result, four bmibaby aircraft based at the two airports will be redeployed to Belfast, East Midlands and Birmingham. The airline currently operates 40 weekly services from Manchester and 30 weekly services from Cardiff to European destinations.