W/Europe-M/East capacity: only British Airways exploits opportunities

The Middle East is Europe's second biggest intercontinental region by seat capacity after North America, while Europe is the Middle East's number two region after Asia Pacific. However, analysis of capacity by country between the two regions highlights certain imbalances.

Although Western Europe's leading countries are bigger overall aviation markets than those of the Middle East, the Europe-Middle East market is more concentrated at its eastern end than at it western end. The top three Western European markets (UK, Germany and Italy) have one third of Europe-Middle East seats in 2018, whereas the top three Middle Eastern markets (UAE, Israel and Qatar) have close to three quarters.

Moreover, capacity growth to/from the Middle East has been rapid outside the biggest European countries, led particularly by Emirates and Qatar Airways. The global connections offered by Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad significantly boost the importance of the UAE and Qatar in Europe-Middle East capacity.

In view of the fact that most of the passengers in these markets do not originate or terminate in the Middle East, British Airways has however been much more strategically astute in exploiting the network of partner Qatar Airways to expand its network reach significantly.