POLAND: Wrocław A Cultural City Is New KLM Destination

From 6 May 2019, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines will expand its network to include the Polish city of Wrocław. The service will be operated with an Embraer 175, which has a maximum capacity of 88 passengers. This lively university city will be KLM's fourth destination in Poland.

Wrocław lies in the west of Poland and has much to offer travellers. In 2016 it was Cultural Capital of Europe.

The addition of Wrocław to our network strengthens KLM's position as an important player in the central European market. Wrocław is also a new destination for Mainport Schiphol and thereby an expansion of Schiphol's network.

The city of Wrocław has a population of more than 600,000 and is Poland's fourth largest city. Wrocław is KLM's fourth destination in Poland after Warsaw, Krakow, and Gdansk.

Air France began operating a service to Wrocław's Copernicus Airport this summer. Wrocław is a lively university city where trade and industry flourish. It has a beautiful old market square, which is lined by pastel-coloured buildings housing cafes and restaurants.

KLM will operate a daily service from Schiphol to Wrocław using Embraer 175 equipment. This aircraft has 20 business class seats, an Economy Comfort zone with 8 seats, and 60 Economy Class seats.

- KL1271 departs Amsterdam Schiphol at 11.50 hours and arrives at Copernicus Airport Wrocław at 13.35 hours.

- KL1272 departs Wrocław at 14:05 hours and arrives at Schiphol at 15.55 hours.


Tourism Observer

UAE: Flydubai To Commence Direct Flights To Helsinki From 11 October 2018

Flydubai has announced the launch of direct flights to Helsinki.

The daily service will start from 11 October 2018. Flydubai becomes the first airline to offer a year-round service between Dubai and Helsinki.

The carrier will operate the new route on its brand-new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft with flat-bed in Business Class and enhanced Economy Class offering.

The Helsinki route will be code shared with Emirates as part of the Emirates’ and Flydubai’s partnership.

Dubai airlines reveal strong passenger numbers for first six months of tie-up.

Emirates and flydubai revealed on Monday strong passenger numbers for the first six months of their partnership.

The first codeshare flights began at the end of October and between November 2017 and this March, over 400,000 passengers have taken advantage of the partnership and more than 250,000 passengers have already planned their trip for the year ahead, a statement said.

The partnership initially began with codeshare flights to 29 cities, and this has since expanded to meet growing demand.

Emirates currently flies to 141 passenger destinations.

Last year, the airline launched new passenger routes to Newark via Athens, Zagreb and Phnom Penh, and later this year, Emirates will begin services to London Stansted and Santiago de Chile.

flydubai currently flies to a total of 97 destinations, 80 of which are not served by Emirates, bringing the total combined network offering to 206 unique destinations.

Both Dubai-based airlines said they will continue to offer customers greater choice and flexibility across their networks, with codeshares to more than 90 destinations today.

New codeshare flights recently launched include Krakow, Dubrovnik and Kinshasa with more destinations expected in the coming months such as Catania from June 13, Thessaloniki from June 15 and Helsinki from October 11.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saaed Al Maktoum, chairman and CEO of Emirates Group and chairman of flydubai, said: We’re really pleased with how well the Emirates and flydubai partnership is going – based on bookings and the feedback from our customers and trade partners.

We have seen a strong demand for travel on combined Emirates-flydubai itineraries from Europe and the United States to the Middle East and West Asian destinations.


Tourism Observer

GERMANY: Traffic At Nuremberg Airport Grows 23%

The city of Nuremberg is home to a population of over 500,000 people, an important industrial centre with a strong standing in the markets of Central and Eastern Europe. With a strong manufacturing prowess, items made in the area around the city include electrical equipment, mechanical and optical products, and printed materials.

The city is also strong in the fields of automation, energy and medical technology, with one of the city’s biggest employers being Siemens. Nestled in the northern part of Bavaria, the city is served by Nuremberg Airport, the tenth largest airport in Germany which last year welcomed just under 3.5 million passengers.

The airport has had many successes during the past year, including the opening of a new Ryanair base, and the team being highly commended at this year’s Routes Europe Marketing Awards in Belfast.

Nuremberg Airport has had an exceptional start to 2017, with Q1 traffic up 23% when compared to the same three-month period of 2016. Passenger figures for January were up 22%, while February indicated a 25% rise and March 23%.

Looking at the international and domestic markets, the former welcomed a 37% increase in traffic during Q1, while the latter showed a more modest 3% rise, highlighting that international expansion is the driving force behind Nuremberg’s impressive growth.

According to ADV monthly statistics, the average growth during the first quarter of 2017 across Germany’s leading airports was 4.5%, showing that Nuremberg is well above the national average.

With the airport’s exciting growth comes the news that it is Germany’s fastest-growing top 10 airport for Q1, with only Berlin Schonefeld (sixth largest airport; 16% growth in Q1 2017) and Düsseldorf (third; 13%) also registering double-digit growth. If Nuremberg’s growth pattern continues throughout 2017, then it should welcome around 4.2 million passengers this calendar year.

When taking Nuremberg’s 2016 monthly passenger statistics and placing them in anna.aero’s Seasonal Variation in Demand calculator (SVID) it performs well, generating a score of 5.48 – a “Good” rating. This is an improvement from the 6.26 also good that it scored for its 2015 monthly statistics.

What this indicates is that with Nuremberg’s impressive traffic growth, the impact has not damaged its seasonality. In fact with the seasonality profile of the airport being reduced, even with more traffic, shows that Nuremberg has demand for year-round services, not just summer seasonal ones when the airport is at its peak.

Since Ryanair opened its base at Nuremberg in October 2016, it now has two 737-800s stationed at the Bavarian airport and as a result it has grown to become Nuremberg’s largest airline. In total the ULCC occupies 18% of weekly departing seat capacity this summer, with its own individual seat capacity growing by over 420%, a result of the based aircraft.

Last year the airline occupied 4.4% of weekly seat capacity during summer. In the past year the airline has opened flights to Bari, Budapest, Madrid, Manchester, Milan Bergamo, Palermo, Porto, Rome Ciampino and Verona from Nuremberg. In total the airline will offer 58 weekly flights from the city during S17.

Wednesdays and Sundays are the busiest of the week with nine flights each, while the rest of the week sees eight daily departures. Looking ahead to W17/18, the most significant route that Ryanair will open from Nuremberg is Krakow, the first connection to be offered between the Polish and German sister cities, and Nuremberg’s first direct flight to Poland.

Ryanair will also connect Nuremberg to Vilnius from the end of October.

The most recent carrier to join the airline roll call at Nuremberg is bmi regional which began flights from Birmingham on 8 May, a route which will operate six times weekly and which anna.aero was fortune to attend the launch of.

In total, weekly seat capacity this summer from Nuremberg has risen by nearly 32% when analysed with S16 data.
Antalya is fastest-growing route for Nuremberg in S17

With SunExpress increasing its seat offering between Nuremberg and Antalya by 128% during the past 12 months, the Turkish resort is the fastest-growing top 12 route from the German airport this summer. It is followed by London Stansted which has seen its capacity increase by over 71%, the result of Ryanair increasing its frequency to 12 times weekly (twice-daily Mondays to Fridays) from daily on the route to the UK capital.

The leading route from Nuremberg this summer is Palma de Mallorca, a title it holds on to from S16 despite a 8.5% drop in capacity.

Looking at OAG schedules for this summer, Nuremberg will have direct flights to 58 destinations (w/c 13 June 2017), an increase of 15 when compared to the same week of 2016.

Along with the new routes to Krakow and Vilnius being launched by Ryanair, other services that are to be introduced from Nuremberg during the remainder of 2017 include Adana, Athens, Dalaman, Reykjavik/Keflavik and Tel Aviv with Germania, with the latter two being the airport’s first flights to Iceland and Israel.

Finally Wizz Air, which has grown its seat capacity from Nuremberg by 122% since last summer, will begin services from Kiev Zhuliany in August.

Looking ahead to the rest of 2017, one of the most significant route launches from Nuremberg is to Tel Aviv, a sector that will be inaugurated by Germania in November.

Along with Tel Aviv, Germania will also add Reykjavik/Keflavik to its Nuremberg schedule from June, becoming the German airport’s first flights to Israel and Iceland.

Other important route launches from Nuremberg in 2017 include Krakow and Vilnius with Ryanair, and Wizz Air adding Kiev Zhulyany flights.

SWEDEN: Scandinavian Airlines Targets Long-haul Growth In 2016

SAS is planning several new long-haul services to the US in 2016 but its most recent long-haul route launch was from Stockholm Arlanda to Hong Kong, which began operating on 10 September. The 8,203-kilometre route, operated by the airline’s wide-body fleet has helped to increase the ASKs offered by SAS out of Stockholm this winter by up to 20%.

Operating on the far north of Europe, and obliged for political reasons to operate three separate hubs within 600 kilometres of each other, SAS is by most measures one of Europe’s top 10 airlines, carrying over 27 million passengers in 2014. However, the Star Alliance carrier has struggled financially in recent years and came very close to collapse in late 2012. Since then things have improved, thanks to a major cost-cutting programme and the fortuitous fall in the price of fuel, so much so that the carrier has even reported a positive 3% operating margin for its most recent 12-month accounting period (to July 2015).

As the national carrier for all three Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) SAS’ three biggest bases are also the capital cities of those countries. The next busiest airports (Bergen and Stavanger) are both in Norway, helping to make it the airline’s leading country market for weekly seat capacity, ahead of Denmark, Sweden, UK, Germany and Spain. The leading non-Scandinavian airports (shown in bright green) are led by London Heathrow in sixth place.

Capacity changes at the airline’s top dozen airports has been within plus or minus 5% with the exception of Trondheim (down 9%), Stockholm Arlanda (up nearly 7%), and Gothenburg (up almost 20%). SAS’ growth in Gothenburg may be related to the benefits of competition from Ryanair which has moved to the bigger airport, and upgraded it to a designated base, following the closure of the city’s downtown airport to commercial services. Dublin features among SAS’ recent route launches…definitely a challenge to Ryanair!

Stockholm growing, Copenhagen and Oslo stagnate in 2015

Analysis of monthly ASKs (Available Seat Kilometres) at the airline’s three main bases shows that on the whole the airline has continued to add capacity to its network. In 2015, Stockholm has seen an 8% increase in its annual ASKs compared with 2014, while both Copenhagen and Oslo have seen very small reductions. In 2014 the opposite had been true, with Copenhagen and Oslo both growing faster than Stockholm.

What this graph fails to illustrate is the increase in routes offered by SAS from its main bases. According to anna.aero analysis of OAG schedule data between August 2011 and August 2015, SAS grew the number of airports served from 87 to 109, while increasing the number of routes flown from around 150 to over 230. SAS’ most recent quarterly presentation highlights this in a different way, pointing out that between July 2011 and July 2015 the airline increased the number of international routes (to outside Scandinavia) by 62%, from 112 to 181. Across the same period aircraft utilisation improved by 29%.

Stockholm’s sudden ASK growth towards the end of 2015 can partly be explained by the launch in September of a new long-haul, wide-body service to Hong Kong using the airline’s latest A330s.

Distinct seasonality profile

While most European airlines and airports see a peak in demand during the main summer months of July and August, the Scandinavian market is somewhat different. With a typically higher proportion of business traffic during most of the year, demand actually falls away during the summer holiday period of July and August even though that is typically when Scandinavians (like their Northern European colleagues in the UK and Germany) head south for guaranteed sunshine.

Dealing with seasonality is a major issue faced by most airlines and applying anna.aero’s SVID (Seasonal Variation in Demand) formula, which we normally apply to airports, to SAS’ monthly seat capacity for the last two years reveals that the carrier has managed to reduce seasonality at its Copenhagen and Oslo bases, but not in Stockholm.

US expansion driven by Norwegian threat?

Long-haul flying is set to grow in 2016 with the commencement of a new daily Stockholm to Los Angeles service starting in March, followed by new services to Miami from both Copenhagen and Oslo starting in autumn 2016. In addition there are increased frequencies this winter on routes to Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Shanghai. However, the service operated on the airline’s behalf by Privatair between the oil cities of Stavanger and Houston, will end in a couple of weeks at the end of the summer season. Instead the 737-700 will be re-configured from a 44-seat all-business class layout to a two-class 86-seat layout (with 20 business class seats and 66 economy seats) and will be used to start a new daily service between Copenhagen and Boston from the end of March 2016. Coincidentally, or not, this is a route that Norwegian plans to start operating with its 787-8s next May. Between the end of October and next March the aircraft will be used to provide some of the capacity on SAS’s existing Copenhagen-Newark service.

Over 90 new routes launched since 2011

Analysing OAG schedule data for the first week of August in both 2011 and 2015 reveals that SAS operates over 90 routes this summer that it did not four years ago. However, it has also dropped around a dozen routes that it did serve in August 2011, including four routes to Madrid, Bergen to London Gatwick and Copenhagen services to Lyon. Some of these new services operate at low frequency for just a few weeks during the peaks summer holiday season.

Airport Route (code)
Copenhagen (CPH) Alicante (ALC), Ankara (ESB), Biarritz (BIQ), Billund (BLL), Budapest (BUD), Chania (CHQ), Dubrovnik (DBV), Edinburgh (EDI), Gazipasa (GZP), Linkoping (LPI), Malaga (AGP), Montpellier (MPL), Naples (NAP), Newcastle (NCL), Palermo (PMO), Palma de Mallorca (PMI), Pisa (PSA), Prague (PRG), Pula (PUY), San Francisco (SFO), Shanghai (PVG), Split (SPU), Tel Aviv (TLV), Thessaloniki (SKG), Trondheim (TRD), Wroclaw (WRO)

Oslo (OSL) Aberdeen (ABZ), Athens (ATH), Berlin (TXL), Billund (BLL), Chania (CHQ), Edinburgh (EDI), Gazipasa (GZP), Pisa (PSA), Pristina (PRN), Pula (PUY), Salzburg (SZG), Santorini (JTR)

Stockholm (ARN) Aalborg (AAL), Alicante (ALC), Ankara (ESB), Barcelona (BCN), Berlin (TXL), Biarritz (BIQ), Billund (BLL), Bodo (BOO), Bologna (BLQ), Bristol (BRS), Cagliari (CAG), Chania (CHQ), Dubrovnik (DBV), Faro (FAO), Gazipasa (GZP), Hamburg (HAM), Kalmar (KLR), Malaga (AGP), Milan Malpensa (MXP), Olbia (OLB), Palermo (PMO), Prague (PRG), Pristina (PRN), Pisa (PSA), Pula (PUY), Riga (RIX), Tampere (TMP), Thessaloniki (SKG), Turku (TKU), Vaasa (VAA), Vilnius (VNO)

Gothenburg (GOT) Alicante (ALC), Athens (ATH), Berlin (TXL), Dublin (DUB), Gazipasa (GZP), Malaga (AGP), Nice (NCE), Palma de Mallorca (PMI), Pristina (PRN), Pula (PUY)

Bergen (BGO) Barcelona (BCN), Gazipasa (GZP), Malaga (AGP), Split (SPU)

Trondheim (TRD) Copenhagen (CPH), Malaga (AGP), Stavanger (SVG)

Stavanger (SVG) Barcelona (BCN), Gazipasa (GZP), Split (SPU), Trondheim (TRD)

Billund (BLL) Copenhagen (CPH), Gazipasa (GZP), Oslo (OSL), Stockholm (ARN)

Further route expansion for this winter includes the launch of Brussels and Paris CDG flights from Gothenburg, plus the re-allocation of Gothenburg-London Heathrow flights to London Stansted. There will also be a new service from Oslo to Vilnius. Apart from the new long-haul services previously mentioned, next summer will see the addition of new services from Stockholm to Munich and from Copenhagen to Faro, Krakow, Reykjavik/Keflavik and Vienna.