Spendthrift Shoestring

November 2008 European LCC Stats

EasyJet and Ryanair had decent Novembers—decent at any rate given the poor economic climate and the difficulties airlines are facing.

EasyJet carried 2.99 million passengers in November 2008 against its 2.89 million passenger tally in November 2007, a rise of almost three and a half percent. Load factor—the number of seats filled by passengers as a proportion of the number of seats available to passengers—also improved, from 80.8 percent to 83.9 percent (+3.1 percent). Ryanair's passenger tally in November rose 11 percent against last November's numbers, from 3.89 million to 4.23 million, while load factor increased one percent, from 78 percent to 79 percent.

Meanwhile, less impressive numbers have emerged from Central European LCC Sky Europe. The airline saw its passenger tally fall in November 2008 against November 2007 by 22.8 percent (to under 220,000 passengers); its load factor dipped 1.2 percent, to 68.4 percent.

Ryanair: October's Passenger Numbers

Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair had an ok October, all things considered. The airline saw an 18 percent increase in passengers flown, from 4.52 million to 5.35 million, against October 2007 figures. Load factor remained stable at 85 percent. It's useful to look at these figures in historical context. In October 2007, the airline posted a 21 percent jump in passengers carried against October 2006 stats, as well as a 2 percent load factor jump in relation to the previous October.

Today the airline also announced a 77 percent drop in half-year profits. Always focused on the bright side, the airline excludes "exceptional costs" totaling €119.3 million from their calculations and claims a profit fall-off of just 47 percent.

Meanwhile, the airline has temporarily canceled all flights to and from Rzeszow as well as most flights in and out of Krakow. These routes are scheduled to resume on December 19. (Thanks to Air Scoop for the tip!)

October stats for other big European LCCs haven't yet been posted. I'll report any dramatic numbers.

SkyEurope's September Stats

I neglected to compare SkyEurope's September stats to those of Ryanair and Air Berlin on Tuesday. Sorry.

The Slovak LCC filled 78 percent of its seats in September, down a striking 6.4 percent from last September's 84.4 percent load factor. That's quite a drop. Compare SkyEurope's 78 percent load factor to Ryanair's 84 percent and Air Berlin's 82.5 percent. SkyEurope's passengers carried sum rose a very modest 1.5 percent. Compare this to Air Berlin's 3.1 percent drop and Ryanair's astounding 20 percent spike in the number of passengers flown.

The one constant here is faltering load factors. And I have a feeling things aren't about to get better.

Air Berlin Vs. Ryanair: September Stats

In September, Air Berlin saw a modest drop in load factor to 82.5 percent from last September's 84.2 percent. The German airline carried 2.85 million passengers in September, down from last September's 2.95 million. These are the sorts of numbers one might expect to see as Germany and other European countries confront a financially insecure terrain. It will be interesting to see how Air Berlin weathers October.

Ryanair also witnessed faltering load factor in September, from 85 percent last September to 84 percent. The airline boosted their passenger numbers significantly, however, with a 20 percent increase. 5.23 million passengers flew Ryanair in September; the comparable number for September 2007 was 4.35 million. Again, October should be a telling month.

Ryanair Gets More Domestic

Today Ryanair announced that from November on, they'll be flying four domestic routes between Madrid and Alicante, Palma, Santiago de Compostela, and Valencia. Ryanair has been amping up domestic flights within larger countries over the last several months. With these routes, I'm counting 18 domestic routes running or planned to run within Spain, including routes to the Canary Islands.

That's nothing compared to the 22 routes Ryanair runs or plans to run within Italy. Ryanair also flies 16 domestic routes within the UK, most of them to and from Derry or Belfast in Northern Ireland. The airline also maintains three domestic routes apiece in France and Germany.

I'm ready to say that this domestic route approach is turning into the key route map development of 2008 for Ryanair. I expected the airline to slowly but consistently open up additional destinations in places like Bulgaria, Ukraine, Israel, and Turkey over the course of the year. None of that has happened, at least not yet. Instead, we've got more and more domestic routes. In some markets, this approach to route development is clearly designed to provide an alternative to flailing local carriers; in France and Germany, the goal seems to be to simply mark territory, subtly hinting at what might happen if the airline decided to expand domestic routes more fully.

Ryanair's Domestic Italian Route Boost

As Alitalia disintegrates, Ryanair is expanding in Italy. The airline announced a slew of Italian domestic routes yesterday. From December, Ryanair will be flying between Forli and Alghero, Bari, Cagliari, Lamezia-Terme, Olbia, and Palermo. The Irish LCC already runs several domestic Italian routes; prior to this announcement, however, none of these flew in or out of Forli.

Ryanair's Strategy

A pair of good commentaries in the Guardian yesterday—one by Gwyn Topham and the other by Larry Elliott—lay out an analysis of possibly tough times ahead for Ryanair. Both pieces look at Ryanair's position following Monday's announcement of disastrously low first-quarter profits, down 85 percent. The most interesting nugget for me was the observation, first in Elliott's commentary and seconded in Topham's, of the falling value of the pound. With the pound's decline, they argue, there are fewer short-term workers from the EU's eastern flank boarding Ryanair and other low-cost carrier planes to find work in the UK. On the other end, the thought of a long weekend in an underexplored Continental spot has become less attractive to many Brits because the pound simply isn't going as far as it did. Topham extends the argument and questions the durability of Ryanair's appeal:

Ryanair's early allure, promising an enjoyable, bargain weekend in a strangely-named destination, already has the feeling of a turn-of-the-millennium fad. A bit like Big Brother: sometimes cheap, sometimes nasty, but losing its appeal fast.

He's on to something, though I can't help but think that Ryanair will continue to fill planes. Route maps can be adjusted; Ryanair recalibrates schedules rapidly in response to demand. And then there's the fact that many other airlines are in trouble and at risk of going bust. Where will their passengers go? Many, I'd guess, will turn to Ryanair.

And how is Ryanair responding to the situation at hand? By announcing a €1/£1 fare sale. These fares include taxes and charges, and are good for travel throughout September. I just did a sample search and found a virtually free London Stansted-Altenburg return flight in September. See for yourself:

Ryanair suggests that this will be the first in a series of massive fare sales over the winter.

Ryanair: Site vs. Print

Last week I flew Ryanair between Stansted and Newquay. It was the typical Ryanair experience, though at least the flight attendants weren't exuding disaffected distance or discussing their health problems whilst wheeling the refreshments cart down the aisle.

Looking over the in-flight magazine, I was surprised by the utter lack of unwitty, aggressive snark so common to Ryanair's news releases. This was the first time I've read the Ryanair in-flight magazine in at least a year and a half, and I was pleasantly surprised. There were pithy destination guides, a look at fashion in Stockholm, a very interesting article on foraging for food, and a story on Lodz. The production level and the absence of witless, gratuitous snark were both miles from Ryanair's weird press release strategy, which appears to prioritize the act of starting fights over all else.

Flash: Ryanair's Continental Moves

On Tuesday, Ryanair announced that they'll be flying between Stansted and Zweibrücken as of October; yesterday they announced four new routes out of Bremen and five out of Marseille, including two domestic routes (Marseille-Brest and Marseille-Lille). The further development of domestic routes within France parallels the announcement in mid-March of the airline's first domestic routes in Germany and France.

These routes seem to be opening up a new strategy for the airline. It will be interesting to see if they'll be followed up by more domestic routes in France, Germany, and elsewhere.

April 2008 LCC Performance Digest

With the continuing stream of bad aviation industry news, you could be forgiven for imagining that Europe's low-cost carriers are all in crisis. In fact, this is not quite the case. To wit: April's performance stats for Ryanair, Air Berlin, and SkyEurope.

Ryanair's load factor fell 4 percent in April against last April 2007's numbers, from 83 percent to 79 percent, while their passenger numbers rose 15 percent, up to 4.72 million passengers. In offering an explanation for the former stat, Ryanair's press release notes that Easter occurred in March this year, thereby explaining last April's high load factor and, by extension, this April's 4 percent load factor decline. One understands why the airline failed to mention the positive effects of an Easter bump in their March 2008 statistical round-up.

Air Berlin had universally sunny numbers in April, with a 4.5 percent load factor increase (from 74.3 to 78.8 percent) and a 6.5 percent jump in passengers, to 2.24 million. Air Berlin's stats include passengers served on some other airlines, all part of the Air Berlin Group: Belair, LTU, and Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter.

On its surface, SkyEurope's April performance appears to be the worst of the three. The airline's load factor fell from 82.1 percent to 70.7 percent, while the the number of passengers flown declined 4.7 percent, to 280,000. Note that SkyEurope's press release title erroneously trumpets last April's passenger numbers. Odd. These numbers don't look good. I'm hoping that the changes made by the airline over the last many months will improve their future stats.