Air France Switches Lyon – Nantes Route to Regional Partner

Air France is to transfer the operation of its Lyon – Nantes route from its mainline fleet to its regional partner BritAir from the start of the Northern Winter schedules. The airline currently operates 35 flights per week with up to six daily rotations every weekday and uses a mix of Airbus A318, A319 and A320s on the route. However, from October 30, BritAir will take responsibility for its operation and will use its new Bombardier CRJ1000s. This will represent a 25-to-50 per cent reduction in seat capacity on each flight.

Air France dominates the traffic on this domestic route with a 65 per cent share of the 325,000 O&D passengers during the past year. Its only direct rival is low-cost carrier easyJet which carried an estimated 105,000 O&D passengers on its own daily flight during the period, after short-time operator Transavia France suspended its own flights on the route.

The arrival of easyJet on a route that was previously monopoly controlled by Air France has certainly changed the dynamics of the market. The low-cost carrier has stimulated demand with traffic increasing 53.5 per cent over the past two years, but its low fares have also eaten into the French national carrier’s market share. In the past 12 months easyJet’s slice of the cake has increased from 20 to 32 per cent, while Air France’s has slipped from 77 to 65 per cent during the same period.

Air France’s yield on Lyon – Nantes has remained relatively strong and although it is down by around 2 per cent since easyJet launched flights on the route, the national carrier has not been hit too hard. easyJet’s average fares are around a third of those being offered by Air France and therefore as the low-cost carrier has increased its own traffic the average fare on the route has fallen; down $45 per sector when compared to the figures prior to easyJet’s debut.

Schedule:

AF5859 LYS0640 – 0755NTE CRK x67
AF5861 LYS0850 – 1005NTE CRK x7
AF5863 LYS1515 – 1630NTE CRK D
AF5865 LYS1645 – 1800NTE CRK x67
AF5867 LYS1815 – 1930NTE CRK 7
AF5867 LYS1900 – 2015NTE CRK x67
AF5869 LYS2010 – 2125NTE CRK x6
AF5858 NTE0650 – 0800LYS CRK x7
AF5860 NTE0840 – 0950LYS CRK x67
AF5862 NTE1305 – 1415LYS CRK x7
AF5862 NTE1330 – 1440LYS CRK 7
AF5864 NTE1710 – 1820LYS CRK x67
AF5866 NTE1810 – 1920LYS CRK x6
AF5868 NTE2015 – 2125LYS CRK 7
AF5868 NTE2050 – 2200LYS CRK x67