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Gulf's Major Carriers Buck the International Trends
The past five years have been a financial nightmare for the world's major airlines. Global recession, Bird Flu, Icelandic volcanoes, the threat of further recession and the financial crisis in the €uro-zone have hit revenues and profits.
The Sweet Smell of Santa Success
Rovaniemi airport is one of the few in the world that depends on a mythical figure for the majority of its winter international flights. Most passengers who arrive at the small Finnish airport in the eight weeks either side of 25 December are there for one reason and one reason only - Santa Claus.
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Technology White Paper - Filling the Void
Leveraging Mobile Technology and Social Media at Times of Crisis
Learn how travel providers such as airlines, airports and travel management companies should embrace and deploy new technologies to better service and inform customers during major travel disruptions.
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Learning the Art of SSIM
Jetairfly gains valuable knowledge through participating in a SSIM class held by Innovata.
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 Gulf's Major Carriers Buck the International Trends
The past five years have been a financial nightmare for the world's major airlines. Global recession, Bird Flu, Icelandic volcanoes, the threat of further recession and the financial crisis in the €uro-zone have hit revenues and profits.
An excellent indicator of these events is evident from Innovata's extensive databases - which are fed directly by the airlines. Data shows, however, that over the past half-decade, the major exception to these threats is within a relatively small area of the Middle East...the Gulf. Here, apparently, different rules apply...specifically flights per week, destinations and ASKs.
Except for Bahrain's Gulf Air - which thankfully appears to be on the mend following some well-publicised challenges and various management, strategic and structural changes - the region's airlines have been experiencing growth that can only be dreamed of by most of the world's major players. While Gulf Air's statistics don't make happy reading for the politically troubled island kingdom - showing a fall in ASKs of around 28% over the past five years and a decline of 5.2% in flights per week - the airline remains positive about the future.
In growth terms, the Sultanate of Oman's airline - Oman Air - shows the largest increase over the past five years, including a massive hike in destinations from 15 to 40. This is scarcely surprising, however, as the country was still part of Gulf Air until 2007. Its subsequent 460% growth in ASKs reflects the Omani government's investment in new aircraft, management structure and routes. Massive spending at the country's two international airports also reflects the country's intention to become a major player.
In real terms, top of the pops is Sharjah's low-cost airline - Air Arabia - which over the past five years has shown growth of 233% in ASKs and 170% in the number of flights per week. Although it was only founded early in 2003, the airline's Airbus A320s now operate an average of 744 flights a week, offering around 247.3-million ASKs. This compares with weekly totals of 276 flights and 74.3-million ASKs a mere five years ago and a doubling in destinations from 25 to 51.
Even the long-established Emirates, the major player in the Gulf since its foundation in 1985, returns impressive growth figures of 57.3% in weekly flights and 95.5% in ASKs.
The final two airlines in the Gulf mix are Qatar's eponymous airline (destinations up from 44 to 100) and Etihad Airways, the national airline of both Abu Dhabi and the UAE. These two majors have both experienced substantial growth since 2006. Qatar leads the way with figures of around 153% for ASKs and 106% for flights, compared with 143.5% and 169% for Etihad.
Airliner manufacturer Airbus recently published projections demonstrating that even with today's aircraft, most major global destinations are within reach of a direct flight from the region. This in turn drives an above average passenger demand growth rate of 6.4% per year - well above the world average 4.8% over the next 20 years. Glad tidings indeed in both Toulouse and Seattle.
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The Sweet Smell of Santa Success
Rovaniemi airport is one of the few in the world that depends on a mythical figure for the majority of its winter international flights. Most passengers who arrive at the small Finnish airport in the eight weeks either side of 25 December are there for one reason and one reason only - Santa Claus.
Innovata's extensive databases - fed by the airlines themselves - show overwhelmingly that British children are the fortunate recipients of the largesse of indulgent grandparents, mums and dads and uncles and aunts. Between November and February, an average of 12 international flights a week from the UK arrive in northern Finland (or Lapland as it's known by Lapps, British tourists and Santa Claus) to experience a wealth of fiction-based activities laid-on by increasingly wealthy local entrepreneurs.
Toy factories vie with reindeer herds, snowmobiles, winter experiences and sleigh rides to attract children - and their benefactors - and it clearly works. This year the UK will send 12 of the 15 international weekly flights to Rovaniemi, with the remaining three being from Latvia (2 - Air Baltic) and Germany (1 - Germania).
There are also 33 domestic flights from Helsinki (26 - Finnair and 7- Norwegian Air shuttles).
UK airlines include: Thomsonfly (Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin, Glasgow, London-Gatwick, London-Stansted and Manchester); and Thomas Cook Airlines with flights from London-Gatwick and Manchester.
Needless to say all relevant flight deck crew have been warned to take special care overnight on 24/25 December in case they should see an overloaded freighter - with skiis - apparently pulled by several reindeer...
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Learning the Art of SSIM
Jetairfly is part of TUI, the world's leading leisure travel company operating in over 180 countries worldwide and is the youngest and most dynamic Belgian airline. Formerly known as TUI Airlines Belgium, its scheduled flights exceed 1.6 million passengers annually. Flights are operated out of Brussels, Liège and Ostend to many destinations.
 Rita Ghys, Schedules Planning and Slots Coordinator for Jetairfly, gained valuable knowledge during a recent SSIM class held by Innovata.
'Until a few months ago our ICT department sent out our SSIM files and answered any questions which inevitably arose about this data. When the person responsible for this work retired and was not replaced, we had to start looking after this ourselves and realised we needed much more skill and expertise to work with this data. A SSIM file looked like Chinese to me" said Rita.
"The course was given by Robin Aborn, one of Innovata's Data Managers, and in two days Ms. Aborn succeeded in giving the group a thorough explanation about SSIM. Since that course, I can now read a SSIM file and have enough knowledge to answer the many questions required of us."
Jetairfly.com is part of the virtual alliance TUI Airlines group, including Arkefly (Netherlands), Corsairfly (France), TUIFly (Germany), Thomson Airways (United Kingdom), TUIFly Nordic (Sweden) and Jet4you (Morocco) with a fleet of more than 100 aircraft.
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