Tiger Airways & business recovery propels Australia’s golden triangle up rankings of world’s busiest

The Sydney-Melbourne and Sydney-Brisbane routes have catapulted up the rankings of the world’s busiest, from 8th and 17th at the start of 2009 to 4th and 12th currently. Only the Tokyo Haneda-Sapporo Chitose and Fukuoka-Tokyo Haneda routes in Japan and the Jeju-Seoul Gimpo sector in South Korea are busier.

See the full Top 50 World’s Busiest Routes Ranking at the CAPA Routes Changes page

World’s Top 20 Busiest Routes: Jul-2010

Rank	Route
1	Tokyo Haneda-Sapporo Chitose
2	Jeju-Seoul Gimpo
3	Fukuoka-Tokyo Haneda
4	Sydney-Melbourne
5	Beijing-Shanghai  Hongqiao
6	Taipei Taoyuan-Hong Kong
7	Tokyo Haneda-Okinawa
8	Sao Paulo Congonhas-Rio De Janeiro Dumont
9	Tokyo Haneda-Osaka Itami
10	Delhi-Mumbai
11	Barcelona-Madrid
12	Sydney-Brisbane
13	Johannesburg Tambo-Cape Town
14	Singapore Changi-Jakarta
15	Jakarta-Surabaya
16	Hong Kong-Shanghai Pudong
17	Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City
18	Los Angeles-San Francisco
19	Guangzhou-Shanghai Hongqiao
20	Shenzhen-Beijing

Source: Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation & OAG Schedules iNET

World’s Top 20 Busiest Routes: Jan-2009

Rank	Route
1	Tokyo-Sapporo
2	Tokyo-Osaka
3	Tokyo-Fukuoka
4	Sao Paulo-Rio De Janeiro
5	Taipei-Hong Kong
6	Shanghai-Beijing
7	Seoul-Jeju
8	Sydney-Melbourne
9	Mumbai-Delhi
10	Tokyo-Okinawa
11	Johannesburg-Cape Town
12	London-Dublin
13	Rome-Milan
14	Atlanta-New York
15	New York-Chicago
16	Madrid-Barcelona
17	Sydney-Brisbane
18	New York-London
19	New York-Boston
20	Shanghai-Hong Kong

Source: Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation & OAG Schedules iNET

Australian domestic market in (strong) growth mode, load factors falling

The Australian domestic market started contracting around Sep-2008, but aggressive capacity moves by airlines this year to defend market shares have seen the market grow every month since Jan-2010. Traffic growth lagged the 8.2% increase in capacity last month, resulting in a reduction in average domestic load factor from 76.9% to 73.9%. Fares are also under considerable pressure. See related report: Australian premium and discount fares slide further as competition thrives

The other major Australian domestic routes include Brisbane-Melbourne and Gold Coast-Sydney – the latter growing 16.2% year-on-year. Passenger numbers are also surging on the Adelaide-Brisbane (+17%), Port Macquarie-Sydney (+16.1%) and Adelaide-Sydney (+13.5%) sectors.

Australian Top 20 domestic routes: Major Australian Airlines, Traffic-on-board-by-stage passengers: May 2010

	City-Pair (a)	Revenue Pax (b)	Available seats	RPKs	ASKs	LF %	Aircraft trips
1	Melbourne - Sydney	632 436	849 149	448 075 920	601 728 557	74.5	4 380
2	Brisbane - Sydney	337 139	444 831	253 865 667	334 957 743	75.8	2 437
3	Brisbane - Melbourne	226 159	306 007	313 064 823	423 749 530	73.9	1 826
4	Gold Coast - Sydney	194 927	247 299	132 550 360	168 163 320	78.8	1 409
5	Adelaide - Melbourne	188 154	242 471	120 983 022	155 908 853	77.6	1 512
6	Adelaide - Sydney	135 919	172 896	158 617 473	201 769 632	78.6	1 061
7	Melbourne - Perth	129 429	164 038	350 234 874	443 886 828	78.9	787
8	Gold Coast - Melbourne	126 388	150 109	168 096 040	199 644 970	84.2	822
9	Perth - Sydney	121 767	161 336	399 882 828	529 827 424	75.5	768
10	Hobart - Melbourne	98 004	124 371	60 566 472	76 861 278	78.8	718
11	Canberra - Sydney	94 775	145 102	22 366 900	34 244 072	65.3	1 560
12	Canberra - Melbourne	93 878	135 318	44 122 660	63 599 460	69.4	953
13	Brisbane - Cairns	89 858	121 933	124 992 478	169 608 803	73.7	730
14	Brisbane - Townsville	75 759	101 646	84 244 008	113 030 352	74.5	664
15	Launceston - Melbourne	66 151	89 170	31 487 876	42 444 920	74.2	624
16	Cairns - Sydney	62 572	89 614	123 329 412	176 629 194	69.8	507
17	Brisbane - Mackay	61 163	87 554	48 746 911	69 780 538	69.9	695
18	Brisbane - Perth	59 830	75 102	216 285 450	271 493 730	79.7	371
19	Adelaide - Brisbane	57 905	76 775	93 921 910	124 529 050	75.4	508
20	Brisbane - Rockhampton	54 280	74 315	28 117 040	38 495 170	73.0	763
	Total top routes	3,698,738	4,990,819	4,180,810,137	5,567,333,802	75.1	33,381
	All Others	531,218	847,553	589,332,267	884,252,728	66.6	15,929
	Total Domestic Network (c)	4,229,956	5,838,372	4,770,142,404	6,451,586,530	73.9	49,310

(a) Inclusion based on expected minimum average of 8,000 passengers per month based on historical trends, and two or more airlines operating in competition over the route.
(b) Total revenue passengers travelling over Australian flight stages on Australian-registered airlines, including passengers carried between domestic airports on international flights.
(c) Covers airlines performing scheduled regular public transport (RPT) operations within Australia, including all regional airlines and Australian international airlines flying over domestic flight stages.
Source: Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation & BITRE

Share movements: Tiger surges, Virgin Blue falls and AirAsia flat

In trading yesterday, Tiger Airways surged 3.2% in Singapore trade, while Virgin Blue eased 1.6%. AirAsia was flat.

RBS Equities issued a note on three investor concerns about AirAsia, noting:

• Heavy gearing is productively employed;
• Frequent account restatements reflect growing other income categories;
• Associates are improving profitability fast.

RBS stated it expects the investor focus to shift to AirAsia’s “robust earnings growth at cheap valuation”.

Selected LCCs daily share price movements (% change): 19-Jul-2010

Source: Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, Yahoo! Finance & Reuters