The market share of low-cost carriers in Europe soared in the two months to the end of May, reaching a record 16.3% of all IFR flights, according to a market update by Eurocontrol. The organisation further states that in the past 12 months, low-cost carriers added 2.4 percentage points to their market share, primarily through rebranding and organic growth.
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What is more significant still is that this growth is equivalent to 83% of all net additional flights, illustrating that little growth was achieved by the legacy carriers. However, they have retained their stranglehold on the major country-pair flows, with the low-cost share increasing in only three of the top 10. Furthermore, low-cost carriers have the highest share in only one – between Spain and the UK.
The UK continues to feature in 10 of the top 25 low-cost country-pair flows, representing 42% of all European low-cost movements in the first five months of 2006. Slovakia remains the national market most dominated by low-cost, with Ireland boasting a similar percentage, due almost entirely to Ryanair. The UK comes next with 31.6%, followed by Spain and Poland with 21.4% each.
Eurocontrol states that there was no apparent shifting of low-cost flights from larger to smaller airports. London Gatwick and London Stansted continue to handle most low-cost flights. ■
Source: Airline Business
