October 8, 2018//-There are over 500 airports across Europe with scheduled capacity of 100,000 seats or more.
Total capacity at these airports has grown by 6% in the 12 months to September 2018 versus the previous rolling year but this top-level glance masks some of the trends taking place at Europe’s regional airports.
In the first paper of this series we looked at regional airports in Europe and proposed a definition of a regional airport as one operating between 100,000 and 10 million seats.
There are 441 in this category, and a further 65 airports which have capacity in excess of 10 million seats. We recognise, however, that there is still a world of difference between an airport operating with close to 10 million seats per annum, and one with a few hundred thousand.
Which are the ones which are growing fastest and what type of routes are most important to this growth? Regional airports are currently growing at a faster rate than most of Europe’s biggest airports, with OAG Schedules Analyser data showing growth over the last year of 8.1% for airports with between 1 and 10 million seats, and 7.3% for the smaller regional airports. This compares to growth of 5.1% for the largest airports (over 10 million seats) in the 12 months to September 2018.
It’s clear from the chart above that Europe’s hub airports are growing at a more measured pace than their smaller competitors, although there are some considerable variations within the 5.1% headline rate; Heathrow is seeing capacity grow by just 1.3% in the 12 months to September 2018, whilst Frankfurt has grown by 8.6%.
If growth is faster at regional airports does that mean the routes where growth is occurring are between regional airports? It appears not.
Hub airports dominate capacity across Europe. They account for 60% of all scheduled capacity and over half (51%) of their capacity operates to other European hubs.
A further 25% of hub airport capacity operates to the larger regional European airports. 19% of hub capacity operates beyond the EU to international destinations, and the remaining 5% operates to small regional and very small airports.
What we see is that for hub airports capacity is growing fastest to small regional airports, i.e. those airports with between 100,000 and 1 million seats, albeit the base level of traffic in these markets is often small.
Carriers added 3.1 million seats on these hub-to-small airport routes, resulting in 7.5% growth. Some of this is being driven by growth in Russian and Turkish domestic markets, but there is also significant growth (over 20% year on year) happening at Cologne, Frankfurt, Milan, Toulouse and Warsaw to small regional airports across Europe.
At Europe’s larger regional airports –those with between 1-10 million seats annually – the picture is quite different.
Nearly two thirds (64%) of their capacity operates to European hubs and 28% of capacity operates to other larger regional airports in Europe.
A smaller share operates to destinations beyond the EU although this is the fastest growing category with 28%. This equates to 3.7 million more seats in the last 12 months from regional airports to airports outside the EU.
Unbundling the 28% growth shows that there are 49 new country pairs operating in the 12 months to September 2018 compared to the previous 12 months, and 156 new routes.
These include new routes from Cardiff to Doha, Keflavik to Dallas and Cleveland, and Krakow to Dubai. Regional airports have also seen significant capacity increases on existing routes to destinations outside Europe, with strong growth in the Europe – Iceland – US market driven by WOW and Icelandair competing in the transatlantic market.
Capacity between Iceland and the US has grown by nearly 390,000 seats in the last 12 months, and corresponding flows from European airports (of all sizes) into Iceland have grown by 350,000 seats.
Routes to the Middle East are experiencing strong growth from regional airports too, with ZagrebDubai growing from 48,000 seats to 111,000 seats in the 12 months to September 2018 and Kiev to Doha reaching 72,000 seats over the same time period.
Other Eastern European airports seeing strong Middle East route growth include Yerevan in Armenia which has seen capacity on the Yerevan-Dubai route nearly double and Tbilisi in Georgia where the Dubai route has grown from 135,000 seats to 180,000, making it the 3rd biggest Middle East route from a regional European airport after DubaiBaku and Dubai-Glasgow.
Capacity between Europe’s larger regional airports is growing too, with 10% more seats this year. This translates to 9 million more seats operating this year than last.
Some countries are recording strong domestic growth in the regional-to-regional airport market – notably Spain, with nearly 0.9 million more seats, Russia with 0.8 million more seats and Italy with 0.4 million more seats.
In mainland Spain much of this is being driven by LCCs, specifically Vueling and Ryanair, whilst in Italy, Ryanair are increasingly growing their presence, particularly between Bologna and Venice to Naples.
Looking at a route level, the Top 10 routes which have seen most added capacity between regional airports increased collectively by over 1.2 million seats in the last year.
The two routes seeing most growth are interCanary Island routes, undoubtedly reflecting the recent increase in the subsidy offered to island residents for air travel.
What’s clear from this short review of European airports is capacity is very firmly in growth mode at Europe’s regional airports, with more undoubtedly to come.
While links to hub airports continue to be vitally important for the larger and smaller regional airports, they are increasingly seeking opportunities to offer the travelers living in their catchment area, and the tourists visiting them, opportunities to fly directly to other regional airports both within Europe and outside.
Aviation Development (AviDev) report 2018
