Western Europe-China aviation: Germany leads as other countries enter

China is the third biggest long haul market by seats from Western Europe after the USA and Canada. This report gives a top down overview of country markets to China from Western European countries ranked by seat capacity and growth rates.

Relative to the market from Western Europe to the USA, this market is more fragmented, with the leading countries less dominant. Nevertheless, the top five countries in Western Europe-China capacity - Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and Italy - control more than half of all Europe-China seat capacity.

Ireland, Greece and Portugal have all been added to the Europe-China market since summer 2017, while Spain, Austria, Belgium, UK and Italy have all enjoyed double digit average growth rates in capacity to China over the past five years.

LCCs have only a very small presence in Europe-China markets, but they are just starting to make their presence felt, thanks to airlines in the HNA Group, which also owns Hainan Airlines (another fast growing participant on Europe-China).