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To continue their recovery, low-cost airlines plan to exceed the number of passengers carried before the pandemic.
Pressed to turn the page on the Covid-19 pandemic, European “low-cost” airlines are rolling out ambitious programs for the summer season, despite the uncertainties arising from the war in Ukraine and inflation.
These companies “have the fastest adaptability (…) Ryanair, easyJet, Vueling, Wizzair will gain very significant market shares”, prophesies Marc Rochet, boss of the French companies Air Caraïbes and French Bee, the latter offering low cost to the West Indies and the United States.
“When we see the dynamics of the number of lines, the return of programs equivalent to 2019 levels, we realize that it is indeed this model which in the short and medium-haul is consolidating the market”, adds Didier Bréchemier, air sector specialist at Roland Berger.
The low-cost recipe is well known: a single type of medium-haul aircraft, one class, aggressive call prices but many paid options (flexibility, seating, food, luggage in the hold or even in the cabin… )
In France, these companies represented in 2021 “a little less than 40% of traffic” against 35% in 2019, according to the Union of French airports.
Oil and rising prices
Transavia France, one of the development axes of the Air France-KLM group, will thus offer this year “70% more seats compared to 2019”, explains to AFP, its general manager Nathalie Stubler. The low-cost airline has noted sales that have picked up “very, very strongly” since the start of the year.
Transavia, which has taken over certain French domestic routes from its sister company Hop!, will have 61 aircraft this summer compared to 38 before the crisis to serve more than 100 destinations, from Jordan to Cape Verde via the popular Greek islands.
Same steel morale at Volotea, a Spanish company which aims to increase capacity “by almost 40% compared to 2019”, and “between 9 and 9.5 million passengers in 2022, or around 32% more than its historic record of 2019”.
Vueling (IAG group), which recovered 18 airport slots at Orly released by Air France in return for state aid, will significantly expand its summer program: 50 direct lines from this airport, compared to 11 in 2019. Europe-wide, it will regain its 2019 capacities.
Ryanair, Europe’s leading airline, plans to exceed the number of people transported before the pandemic by March 2023, a target of 165 million passengers in the 2022/23 financial year, despite the war in Ukraine. and the jump in oil prices.
As such, the emblematic low-cost Irish seems to have played the best: it acquired 80% of its fuel in advance at a price of around 65 dollars per barrel – against more than 100 currently – and should not see its accounts weighed down by only 50 million euros over the next twelve months.
Other companies, less protected, may however have to increase their prices further.
(AFP)