Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

UK carriers rush to snap up bmibaby’s planned route closures

British Airways (BA) is preparing to disband bmibaby, the low-cost unit it unwelcomely acquired from bmi after previous owner Lufthansa failed to find a buyer. But as the saying goes: one man’s meat in another man’s poison and the news of bmibaby’s grounding was welcomed by multiple airlines including Monarch, Flybe and Jet2.com, all of which are swiftly stepping in to backfill capacity.

Anemic-turns-dynamic is not exclusive to bmibaby’s network but a development seen following the recent demise of other small- and medium-sized airlines in Europe such as Spanair, Malev and Cimber Sterling. In those cases, competitors have reacted swiftly and within a couple of days to fill the void.

bmibaby’s closure is indicative of a recent development in Europe: the lavish injection of capital in loss-making carriers is coming to a standstill with public and private shareholders alike halting the operations of these entities, mostly small- and medium sized airlines, a trend long overdue and induced by low or no economic growth in most EU countries implementing stark austerity measures, and high fuel prices.

Asia Pacific airports move up the ranks in 2011, with Beijing this year to overtake Atlanta

The rankings of the world’s busiest airports for 2011 show key developments and lasting changes in global aviation, although the world’s busiest airport by total passenger movements, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, continued to hold off Beijing, the world’s second busiest airport, in 2011, according to Airports Council International (ACI). It is, however, expected that Beijing, driven by exponential GDP growth, will overtake Atlanta in 2012, ending the airport's 14-year reign in the top spot.

While Beijing Capital is the dominant airport in China, it is on track to become be the world’s busiest hub by the end of this decade, leaving London and even ambitious Dubai in its wake. And new developments will ensure the city of Beijing has an airport in the top spot: its new airport at Daxing, south of Beijing, could have up to nine runways and ultimate capacity to handle around 370,000 passengers per day, or a staggering 135 million passengers p/a. This would increase capacity at Beijing area airports to around 220 million p/a – almost a quarter of a billion passengers.

Arkefly to expand low-cost long-haul network to US West Coast

Dutch carrier Arkefly is expanding its network to the US west coast with three new seasonal destinations, signalling the potential it sees in the relatively undeveloped low-cost long-haul trans-Atlantic market. Until now Arkefly’s US network was limited to the east coast. The airline is also planning expansion to Southeast Asia which could fill some of the void left by AirAsia X in the Europe-Asia low-cost long-haul market.

Arkefly is a low-cost carrier based at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport and is owned by Germany’s TUI Group, which has a portfolio of airlines following primarily leisure carrier or hybrid leisure/LCC models. Arkefly operates a mix of scheduled and charter services with both narrowbody and widebody aircraft. Its charters are primarily for Dutch tour operator and sister company Arke, which is also owned by TUI. Other TUI Group carriers include TUIfly (Germany and Austria), TUIfly Nordic (Sweden), Thomson Airways (UK), Corsairfly (France) and Jetairfly (Belgium).

It could be true... London-Amsterdam Air-Bridge concept studied by UK government

The UK Government has established a highly paid 15-person committee to examine whether a focus group study should be conducted into the feasibility of a new “Air-Bridge” to connect London Heathrow Airport with Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. The bridge will be the longest single- span construction ever conceived. The exciting concept follows strenuous attempts by the Conservatives’ Liberal Democrat and Green coalition partners to encourage air passengers to travel anywhere except to and from the UK.

The committee will be headed by the Bishop of Bottom Hollow and Little Barking, who leapt to prominence last year by excommunicating all airline staff in the UK, whom he described as “sinful exponents of the dark art”. The concept of the new Air-Bridge would allow passengers at Heathrow to connect, via a short 15-hour bus ride, through Schiphol Airport to lots of other places in the world. This is only slightly more than the current time taken to connect between terminals at London Heathrow.

Rail link plans fall through but demand remains high

For the air transport industry to remain competitive with what is an increasingly ‘preferred’ mode of transport in the EU and beyond – rail – the air-rail link is, ironically, a saviour. In two recent cases such links have been postponed or called into question by a bidder, but there are still plenty of schemes in the pipeline, with Europe leading the way in this field.

The scheme that has been postponed is one at Dublin, Ireland, where the Transport Minister confirmed early in Nov-2011 that investment in transport infrastructure generally will be scaled back significantly over the next five years. Overall spending on transport capital will fall by almost 50% from EUR1.5 billion in 2011 to EUR0.8 billion in 2016. As part of this reduction, the Government will postpone the new rail link to Dublin International Airport. Prime Minister Enda Kenny stated, “We cannot afford to do all that we want to do. This plan is based on what the country can afford. We face a large budget deficit, dependent on support funding and operate in a very challenging international environment."

Intra-Europe traffic trends in the right direction, but outlook darkens for Europe’s carriers

European airlines continued to report positive passenger traffic results in Aug-2011, the final month of the summer peak travel period, when European airlines make the bulk of their revenue. Almost all of the major airlines reported year-on-year increases in load factor and passenger numbers, despite the increasingly worrying economic backdrop affecting business and consumer confidence across the region. If such uncertainty continues, European carriers may be in for a bumpy end to 2011.