Interesting BITRE Traffic Stats May 2014

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eastwest101

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I noticed this thread on Airliners net and for the benefit of people who don't often look there just thought this may be worth re-posting here as it gives some interesting insights into who is losing money where at the moment.



I've been perusing the BITRE data for May, and it makes for some very depressing reading.

I know that May is one of the slowest months for international travel for Australia, and that's why I thought it would be interesting (to see how bad it gets) and the load factor figures are pretty horrific.

In passing I should give a shout out to Qantas to Philippines, the single largest load factor across the month. Qantas recorded a 96% load factor to MNL, made all the more incredible by PAL only achieving 72%.


Now for the fun part:

Below 50%:

Air Niuguini - PNG
Solomon Airlines - Solomon Islands
United Airlines - Guam
Virgin Australia - PNG
Virgin Australia - Solomon Islands

(for the record, the last three are actually below 45%!)

Below 55%:

Air India - India
Air Vanuatu - Vanuatu
Jetstar - Japan
Qantas - PNG
Thai Airways - Thailand

Below 60%:

Air New Zealand - Cook Islands
Air Vanuatu - Vanuatu
Garuda Indonesia - Indonesia
Malaysia Airlines - Malaysia
Qantas - New Caledonia
Royal Brunei - Brunei
Virgin Australia - Tonga

Below 65%:

Air Caledonie - New Caledonia
Air Mauritius - Mauritius
Emirates - New Zealand
Qantas - Indonesia
Qantas - Singapore
Scoot - Sinagpore
Silk Air - Sinagpore
South African Airlines - South Africa
Virgin Australia - Indonesia
Virgin Australia - Thailand
Virgin Australia - Tonga

Below 70%:

Air Asia X - Malaysia
China Airlines - New Zealand
China Airlines - Taiwan
Indonesia Air Asia - Indonesia
Jetstar - Indonesia
Our Airline - Nauru
Qantas - China
Qantas - New Zealand
Qantas - South Africa
Qantas - Thailand
Virgin Australia - UAE
Virgin Australia - Vanuatu
Virgin Samoa - Samoa


What is fascinating here is that with a couple of exceptions (South Africa, India) the low load factors are exclusively within the Asia-Pacific region.

A lot is written about Asia on here, so I'm going to start with the Pacific. And aren't those numbers atrocious! Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga ... all have horrific numbers. Normally I would write this off as slow season outside of school holidays, and extrapolating the Indonesia data it appears that DPS also had an awful month, lending credence to their theory. But, and here comes the massive but, Fiji and Hawaii (strictly speaking is USA, but I'll include it hear) both had phenomenal months, as you will see in a second. If anyone can explain this I am all ears. I honestly can't fathom how NAN (and HNL for that matter) managed to buck this trend.

And then there's Asia. Oh Asia. First of all, please join me in a moments silence for Thai, Malaysia, and Garuda. They tried hard, bless them. But they weren't alone, and Brunei, Scoot, Air Asia, Jetstar, Silk Air, not to mention a raft of destinations from Qantas and Virgin Australia are right up there with them. For the record, Singapore Airlines missed out on being on this list by the narrowest of margins. We have been discussing the over-capacity situation to South East Asia for months, and here it is laid out in all of its glory.

The two most concerning figures are Jetstar to Japan (cf QF and JL) and Qantas to New Zealand (cf NZ).

Now for the chirpier news, these airlines/routes achieved a load factor over 80% on a bi-directional basis:

Air Canada - Canada
Air New Zealand - New Zealand
Cathay Pacific - Hong Kong
Delta - USA
Etihad - UAE
Fiji Airways - Fiji
Jetstar - Fiji
Jetstar - Honolulu
Qantas - Chile
Qantas - Philippines
Qantas - USA
Vietnam Airlines - Vietnam
Virgin Australia - USA

If we expand this to above 75% (it is off-season after all) you can add:

British Airways - United Kingdom
China Eastern - China
Eva Air - Taiwan
Hawaiian Airlines - USA
JAL - Japan
Jetstar - New Zealand
Qantas - Japan
Qantas - United Kingdom
Qatar Airways - Qatar
Tigerair - Singapore
Virgin Australia - Fiji

I know its somewhat old news but its interesting to note that most of the South Pacific is a disaster area for VA QF and their respective national airlines.
 
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Not a surprise with the capacity coming from AirAsiaX, and I suspect more to come from its Thai and Indo franchies, as well as the recently launched Cebu Pacific (which will hit Manilla).
Plus Malaysian discounting hard to get anyone to travel with them.
 
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