Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport

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.

Hawaiian Airlines endures short-term pain to secure, it hopes, successful longevity

Hawaiian Airlines faces a challenging time during 1H2013 as its efforts to diversify outside of the Hawaii-US west coast market during the last few years need more time to bear fruit. Its ambitious long-haul expansion is accompanied by the introduction of a new inter-island subsidiary and the reworking of other portions of its inter-island network.

All of the changes Hawaiian is undertaking or planning to introduce are intended to bolster efforts to preserve its profitability, which has been fairly consistent during the last few years. But in the near future the carrier is facing pressure as its new long-haul Asian markets spool up and increases in competitive capacity create pressure in its trans-Pacific service to the continental US.

While the strategy Hawaiian is adopting to persevere in the long-term is solid, the airline might be attempting to accomplish too much too fast, which in the shorter-term is creating pressure on yields and unit revenues.

Airlines' tangled alliances evolve: British Airways-Cathay Pacific codeshare to Australia - for now

Implications continue to emerge from the Sep-2012 landmark Emirates-Qantas alliance, the latest development being a codeshare covering Australia for British Airways and Cathay Pacific. Although the two are members of the oneworld alliance and at first blush may be considered partners, they had the most minimal of ties, owing to significant competition between them.

That competitive situation still exists but other factors have changed: BA's once deep partner Qantas is now a competitor, aligned with Emirates, and is establishing a Jetstar franchise on Cathay's home turf in Hong Kong. BA and Cathay are united by a common enemy – not the first occasion this reasoning has spawned an alliance – but also other factors. BA has lost its Australian network access and Cathay fits in; meanwhile Cathay will be receptive to feed to sustain its positioning after China Southern and Singapore Airlines have made large capacity increases in Australia.

Alliances are evolving, and this partnership will surely change – or go extinct – as BA becomes more familiar with new oneworld members Malaysia Airlines and Qatar Airways, with whom it will have more in common than it does with Cathay.

Hawaiian Airlines looks to rebound from tough competitive market conditions in 2H2013

Hawaiian Airlines believes industry-wide capacity cuts and decreases in its own unprofitable supply will allow the carrier to post a stronger performance during 2H2013. This is after currency pressures, a somewhat too ambitious expansion into inter-island markets and competitive pressure on its routes to the US mainland dulled the carrier’s 4Q2012 performance.

The company recorded a USD3.4 million loss during the last three months of 2012 compared with a USD21 million profit for the year prior.

Despite the decline in profits Hawaiian recorded a 14% increase in top-line revenues to USD493 million during 4Q2012; but a 20% jump in operating expenses to USD481 million drove operating income down 64% to USD12 million.

Australian domestic airfares tumble as airlines wage a capacity battle

Australian domestic fares have tumbled in the past year as Tiger claws its way back into the market from its grounding in 2011, and Qantas and Virgin Australia continue to slug it out for overall market share.

It is unlikely that the pressure on fares and thus yields will let up in 2013 as Tiger continues to add capacity and Virgin and Qantas, along with Jetstar, stick to their targets to add between 7% and 9% capacity in the first half of the current financial year.

All those extra seats should keep a lid on any fare rises, and if Virgin is given the regulatory green light to take effective control of Tiger Australia, along with the promised investment to expand the LCC, there is a real prospect that fares will reduce even further.