Analysis Reports

For the Asia Pacific airline industry, 2024 has been marked by more hurdles on the path to full recovery of international capacity and traffic.

The region's overall capacity has moved much closer to 2019 levels, but new and familiar challenges meant that the rate of growth slowed significantly compared to the previous two years.

This overview is based on a presentation by Adrian Schofield, CAPA - Centre for Aviation and Aviation Week Network senior air transport editor for Asia Pacific, at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit | Asia in Hong Kong on 5-Nov-2024.

Part one of this report discusses overall recovery trends in the Asia Pacific market from multiple angles, as well as looking at Thailand as an example of how these trends are playing out.

The second part will look at further market examples in mainland China, Japan, Hong Kong and India, as well as examining aspects such as aircraft order backlogs, LCC market penetration, and challenges for 2025.

This regular CAPA - Centre for Aviation report provides a summary of major developments in the aircraft interiors sector, supported by data from the CAPA - Centre for Aviation Aircraft Interiors Database and CAPA - Centre for Aviation News.

This edition covers Sep-2024 and Oct-2024 and features:

• Starlink signs with United Airlines and Air France;
• Cathay Pacific replacing the Cirrus: a look back at the original reverse herringbone;
• Latest global interior updates.

The Brazilian airport concession process, which began in 2011, has come a long way since then, with many of the country's airports now under contract to a variety of mainly western operators, while in latter tranches more Brazilian companies came on board when the smaller airports became available (of which there are many).

Along that road there have been successes and failures, economic crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, complaints about misinformation concerning traffic forecasts, and a handful of re-concessions.

Now the second phase is being entered, one of maturity in the marketplace, in which concessionaires are being pressed for enhanced investment in the properties, and in some cases being offered a carrot to do so.

Going hand-in-hand with that is a sudden and unexpected renewal of the procedure to offload even more of the small regional airports, those which are there for social rather the business or tourism purposes, and those that were expected to be managed by the state operator Infraero as its role changed.

The seventh concession tranche was anticipated to be the one which wrapped up the process, but there is life in the old dog yet, as the government incentivises existing concessionaires to invest in these isolated airports - bundled up in groups of six like a fire sale - by dangling the attraction of an extension of the existing contract.

Whether that will be enough to attract them is yet to be determined.

Frontier Airlines has remained unabashedly bullish about the ultra-low cost business model in the US during the past year, as the weaker performance of budget airlines has triggered questions about their long term viability.

After several product pivots and a network revamp, Frontier is declaring itself as "the premier ULCC," and believes that it can deliver double digit margins by mid-2025.

It's a big gap to close, considering that Frontier's forecast adjusted pre-tax margin for 4Q2024 is 0-2%.

Given the ample progress the airline needs to make, markets are likely to adopt a wait-and-see approach before rewarding Frontier with higher valuations.

As 2025 approaches and travellers start thinking about where they'll go next year, Skyscanner has revealed the most exciting industry and traveller trends it is seeing on a global and regional level - from spending habits to the hottest new destinations.

The latest 2025 edition of its Horizons report brings together proprietary search and booking data with a survey of 19,000 travellers worldwide to reveal a unique forward-looking view of changing attitudes, planning and destination trends.

There are different ways of looking at New York Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR).

It could be considered New York's second airport as it is the city-region's second busiest, or the third because it is not actually in New York and mainly serves a more localised marketplace.

It adds up to an important piece of infrastructure, either way.

With close to 50mppa it is the busiest 'second city' airport in the world, and in cities like New York - which have over 100mppa in total - it is much bigger than its 'third airport' peers.

But its infrastructure is old, and in some cases, not fit for purpose.

A new terminal was opened in 2023 and has already won a major award. The next stage of its revival plan, dubbed the EWR Vision, calls for another new terminal, refurbishment of a third, and additional surface transport enhancements.

The major part of the plan is being priced up as this report is written, while a decision will be made as to whether and how to involve the private sector - as has become 'de rigueur' at the John F Kennedy and LaGuardia airports in recent years.

The demand is certainly there, but bearing in mind that it has not been asked to get involved at EWR thus far (apart from the construction of a car rental facility), those potential private sector partners would welcome a decision sooner rather than later.

The two largest airlines at London Gatwick, easyJet and BA Euroflyer, both operate Airbus A320 family aircraft. This brings them into competition for pilots from the same talent pool.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, easyJet has increased its lead on seat share to Europe over BA Euroflyer, which is the London Gatwick short/medium haul subsidiary of British Airways.

However, this mainly reflects BA's stop-start history at the airport.

Analysis by CAPA - Centre for Aviation indicates that BA Euroflyer is competitive on costs when compared with its parent company and with easyJet, and has lower staff costs per employee. This supports reports from a number of sources - or at least does not contradict them - that easyJet pays its pilots more than BA Euroflyer at London Gatwick.

In contrast with British Airways' previous London Gatwick operations, BA Euroflyer reported a profit in 2023. If it is to remain profitable, it will need to weigh up the need to attract and retain pilots - with the imperative to remain cost-effective.

In the run-up to the Global Airport Development conference in Munich in Dec-2024, this is the third in a series of SWOT analyses of some of the larger investors and operators in the airports business.

Fraport, with its head office at one of Europe's leading gateway and hub airports, is smaller in scope than some its peers, but has gained a reputation over many years, mainly in airport management and concession deals (while it has other businesses, such as retail concession operations in the US).

Frankfurt Airport has lost some of its power recently; other German airports are on the up, while operational costs in Germany are also getting higher.

As such, Fraport's investments in foreign airports have been valuable, especially those in Türkiye and Peru, and Fraport entered the Brazilian market at the right time. It is probably well positioned to enlarge its portfolio there if it chooses to do so.

One or two of the other investments are more questionable.

Once an inveterate bidder, its interest seems to have diminished since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, although that might be at least accounted for by events. Events that have meant that it has left early investments in China, India and Russia in recent years, and it is yet to be revealed whether it will now begin to pick up speed again as more opportunities arise.

Or if it will content itself with its existing, reduced portfolio.

European airspace had a very poor summer in accommodating the demand for flights, according to data from Eurocontrol.

Total Air Traffic Flow Management delays in the three months Jun-2024 to Aug-2024 were up by 44% compared with the equivalent period of 2019, and by 48% year-on-year. This was in spite of traffic volume 2.6% below 2019 levels, and only 4.8% more than the same three months of last year 2023.

Eurocontrol has estimated the cost of delays in the three peak summer months of 2024 at up to EUR1.8 billion. The situation has been exacerbated by poor planning and staffing issues, and geopolitical and labour factors are also key challenges.

Meanwhile, the long-hoped-for 'Single European Sky' - which would make air traffic management more integrated and more efficient - continues to make only slow progress.

There is a small number of investors into airports in South Korea, the main one being Incheon International Airport Corporation, which has its fingers in several pies.

It is pertinent to ask if they might soon be joined by the Hanwha Corporation, and specifically its Investment & Securities division, which in short time has taken small stakes in London Gatwick Airport, the UK's second busiest, and latterly Edinburgh, the sixth busiest.

In both cases those stakes were taken from Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which continues to scale down its interests in the sector, at least in some parts of the world, while it is being taken over by BlackRock.

The other common denominator here is VINCI Airports, which has also acquired equity from GIP at London Gatwick and Edinburgh in the past few years, but on a much larger scale, taking operational control of both.

Hanwha is a multi-sector, multinational conglomerate, whose many divisions have the ability to cross-support each other. That could well be a benefit to VINCI as it continues on its path towards global domination.

On the other hand, Hanwha may choose to remain a small-scale investor, where it perceives short, mid and long term value, and both these airports are in that category.

Time will tell, but the betting is that Hanwha will be expanding sooner rather than later.