Australian aviation market shows signs of slowdown just as airlines were enjoying yield premiums

There are now clear signs the Australian aviation market is entering a light slowdown, with carriers adding capacity ahead of demand while airfares decline marginally. This will affect the region's carriers differently and they should all fare better than counterparts elsewhere in the world; notably, the market in Australia is still growing, but not as fast. Most exposed are Qantas mainline and Tiger Airways Australia. The former has been slowly losing some corporate business to Virgin Australia and competes with a higher cost base.

Tiger is suffering from group-wide over-capacity and would not be able to redeploy capacity as readily. Unlike Tiger, Jetstar has a healthy and rapidly growing pan-Asian network that can absorb any surplus capacity and at a higher margin even than in Australia. Virgin Australia is seeing yield growth from its transition to a business carrier, growth that should overcome any weakness in the more leisure-exposed areas of its business.