Manchester 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).

After 'engine change in-flight' bmi Regional looks to re-grow partnerships – and profitability

bmi Regional is a familiar name now undertaking a very different strategy after what management terms an “engine change in-flight” when the carrier was sold off from IAG and had to migrate to its own IT systems, new office, IATA code and BSP in a matter of weeks.

During that time the focus was to keep the carrier operational, and with the transition settled down, bmi Regional is now looking to re-establish partnerships, grow its network focused on point-to-point traffic rather than the approximate quarter of traffic it received from Star Alliance, which it is no longer a member of. The carrier is viewing an open future across Europe, not just the UK, where sub-100 seat services are needed. A320 and 737 operations are not its focus, at least for now.

American-US Airways merger: the competitive impact on European carriers

The planned merger of AMR Corp, parent of American Airlines, and US Airways Group will have a small, but noticeable impact on European airlines via their North Atlantic networks. The merged AA-US Air will be the number four ranked airline group on the North Atlantic, an improvement on AA’s current sixth place. In terms of the alliances, if this merger and the Delta-Virgin Atlantic deal both complete, the three global alliances will have divided routes between Europe and North America almost equally between them, with little left for non-aligned carriers.

AA and US Air operate to Europe from different US hubs and there is no city pair route overlap between the two (so competition authorities seem unlikely to worry themselves on the grounds of these operations). However, when looking at overall markets between the US and individual European countries, the merger will have a competitive impact on European carriers’ North Atlantic activities, most notably Iberia and Alitalia, followed by Aer Lingus.

MAG-led consortium's purchase of Stansted Airport could point the direction for the future

The sale of Stansted Airport as part of the break-up of BAA's holdings could coincide with a significant change in its operating outlook, as well as playing a part in reshaping the UK's airport competitive landscape.

As predicted in many of the latter editions of CAPA's Airport Investor Monthly, the deal to sell London Stansted Airport to a Manchester Airports Group-led (MAG) consortium that includes an Australian Pension Fund Manager, was concluded in Jan-2013 for GBP1.5 billion and is expected to pass all final hurdles within a month.

What does this acquisition of a piece of privately owned real estate effectively by a public sector organisation say about the privatisation of airports in the UK, about the North-South divide and about how UK air transport will shape up in the future?

And, as London Mayor Boris Johnson apparently turns his attention away from a big new "estuary airport" towards a more grounded solution at Stansted, MAG and its partners could be in the right place at the right time.

easyJet expands services at Manchester Airport – the future is orange

As easyJet continues its evolution towards becoming more of a business airline, it has announced additional routes at Manchester Airport (MAN), UK, for 2013.

A seemingly innocuous statement (it will add routes at other airports also, of course) belies the impact that easyJet – and Ryanair – are having at an airport that once treated LCCs as if they were an unwelcome virus from another planet, as it sought to become the UK's northern international hub.

But things have changed. Manchester is now bracketed with the UK’s other ‘regional’ airports rather than as a national intercontinental gateway (though it does remain one) and increasingly behaves like a regional airport. Meanwhile, what was the ‘preferred’ carrier there for many years (British Airways) has virtually exited Britain’s third busiest airport altogether.

As easyJet grows in strength at MAN the future, to paraphrase a well known British television commercial, seems to be orange, with a little yellow and blue thrown in for good measure.

easyJet’s record GBP317m profit as it hits the strategic sweet spot

When Carolyn McCall took over the reins as CEO at easyJet in 2010, a lot of wise heads shook and sagely gave her a year to make a mess of things. With no experience in what is a seriously complex operational business, in the throes of change and confronted by brutal competition, as the shades of economic growth were being drawn – not to mention the much unwanted attention of the “rich kid who started an airline” (to use his self-description) – easyJet’s best days were behind it. And a high profile media woman was simply not up to the task.

After yesterday’s annual financial results, as pre-tax profit rose 27.9% to GBP317 million, Ms McCall is going to need at least another year to make a mess of things. The record profit also allows the rich kid to make a tidy return on his investment, as the profit was accompanied by a dividend of GBP21.5 pence a share, and the share price rose 5%.