Aviation’s growth across the CIS region shows no signs of slowing down, especially for Russia’s capital airports, according to Deirdre Fulton, a consultant at UK company Airport Strategy & Marketing Ltd (ASM).
Capacity across the CIS region has gone from strength to strength in recent years. According to OAG schedules data, the number of non-stop departing scheduled flights that operated from the CIS region was up a very healthy 7.1% in May 2012. This was in marked contrast to elsewhere in May, when global aircraft frequencies increased by 1%, and in the rest of Europe actually fell by three per cent compared to the corresponding period a year ago.
In May 2012, there were 54,987 departing flights available from the CIS region, which translated into 7,117,907 seats. At a time when the European aviation market has just marginally more operations than its previous low point of the financial global crisis in 2009, the CIS markets are by contrast booming. The number of available flights and seat capacity for the CIS region rose by 7.1 per cent and 10 per cent respectively in May 2012 against the previous year. This amounts to 3,701 more flight operations and 646,768 more seats.
The CIS is still a market dominated by network carriers who still account for 98% of capacity, although low-cost carriers (LCC) have started to increase their market share. In May 2003, there were only nine LCC operations, but by May 2012 this had grown to 953 (although this has fallen by 36 per cent since May due to the withdrawal of SkyExpress from the market).
Looking back over the last 10 years reveals that flights from the region have grown each year by an average of 10% since 2003, whilst in the last five years annual growth has averaged 5.2 per cent. The European average annual growth rate has been 2.3% since 2003 and overall European flights have declined since 2008 by 1.5% each year.
So what lies beneath this growth in the CIS region? Although nearly three quarters of all flights from the CIS countries were to destinations within the region, services to the Middle East were the fastest growing in May 2012, where flights and seat capacity increased by 11.6 per cent and 17.9 per cent respectively on last year.
The bulk of this growth is not surprisingly to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where flydubai, Air Arabia and Emirates Airline have put an additional 34,407 seats into CIS countries. In May 2012, flydubai operated to seven new destinations, taking the total to eleven in the CIS. New markets served include Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan; Kazan and Ufa in the Russian Federation; and Donetsk and Kiev in Ukraine. Air Arabia has started operating to Donetsk from Sharjah and also to Moscow.
The biggest market was traffic to destinations within the CIS area. Flights between the CIS countries accounted for 71 per cent of all flights from the region and there were 39,223 aircraft operations planned for May 2012, with 4,657,860 seats. These figures mirrored the overall CIS growth of 7.4 per cent and 9.9 per cent respectively.
The Russian Federation dominates, with the largest volumes of aircraft operations and 71 per cent of the CIS market. In May 2012, there were 27,825 flights and 3,310,875 seats planned from the Russian Federation, which was an increase of 8.4 per cent and 8.6 per cent on last year. Looking back over the last ten years, flights and seat capacity have grown consistently from Russia, averaging 10.8 per cent each year since 2003.
The Ukraine and Kazakhstan markets are the second and third largest markets in the CIS region. Aircraft operations from the Ukraine were up by 9.9 per cen in May, whilst seat capacity was up by 30.8 per cent taking it to 374,046. This significant increase in seat capacity is evident as average seats per movement have increased from 79 to 101 from May 2011 to this year. The additional aircraft and seat capacity was mostly on domestic services within the Ukraine – 56 per cent of the additional capacity – and services to the Russian Federation (44 per cent). Kazakhstan is the third largest market within the CIS, and the rate of growth was somewhat slower, with planned aircraft operations only up by 1.5 per cent on last May. This equated to 47 additional planned flights and 20,910 seats.
Looking in greater detail at the Russian Federation, domestic traffic was by far the biggest market with 62 per cent of all departing flights. There were 23,053 internal flights planned in May 2012, which was an increase of 7.8 per cent on May 2011. This equated to 188,164 more seats from Russian airports.
Looking at the top 10 Russian airports by seat capacity for May 2012, shows that a majority experienced strong growth compared to last year. Moscow’s two biggest airports (Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo) experienced increases as did Ekaterinburg Koltsovo Airport, which had an additional 14,393 seats, mostly to Moscow, and Sochi, which had an additional 17,174, again mostly to the Russian capital. It would seem that all roads lead to Moscow, as the strong performance of the capital’s airports have led to average annual growth of 11.5 per cent over the last decade. Ever increasing demand ensured that they have recovered well from the 2009 global crisis.
After the domestic market, the next biggest regional market served from the Russian Federation is
Europe, which had 7,643 planned aircraft operations in May 2012. Germany, Turkey, the Czech Republic, France and Italy accounted for nearly 50 per cent of all departing flights, with the Czech Republic in particular showing strong growth on last year. Czech Airlines has added an additional daily flight from Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO), taking daily frequency to five; and Aeroflot has also increased capacity at SVO by an additional daily departure. UTair Aviation have added to traffic capacity from Moscow to the Czech Republic with the equivalent of a twice-weekly service from Vnukovo International Airport (VKO).
Looking at the Ukrainian market, it was the CIS countries which represented the biggest volume of aircraft operations from the Ukraine, and although growing, these have only just recovered to 2008 levels with 3,453 planned aircraft operations to CIS countries for May 2012.
Just over half of all flights were to destinations within the Ukraine and the next biggest destination was for flights to the Russian Federation. In May 2012, planned flights to the Russian Federation were up by 22 per cent, which equates to 251 additional planned departing flights, all to Moscow.
Whilst there are many challenges ahead for the development of air services in the CIS region – not least ageing fleets and airport infrastructure; a complex regulatory environment; and a fragmented set of carriers – capacity growth shows no signs of slowing down, despite the poor economic conditions and airline consolidation taking place in the rest of Europe. This is perhaps an indication of the resilience and the potential this market offers.
This story appears in the latest issue of Routes News, which can be read here Routes News. A copy of the world air service development magazine is also in all delegate bags at Routes CIS.
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