Yesterday’s Routes Europe Strategy Forum attempted to highlight some of the key issues that are impacting the commercial aviation business across the entire European region. With a high profile list of speakers the content was specially developed to provide a unique insight into the business with informed moderators ensuring the key issues were not glossed over.
The HUB highlights the key quotes from yesterday's discussions:
“Regional airlines are looking to develop their hub services rather than point-point which is particularly a reaction to their businesses being squeezed by low-cost carriers and major airlines,” Siim Kallas, vice president of transport at the European Commission
“Slot allocation aims to increase capacity by 24 million more passengers by 2025, save €5-6 billion and create 62,000 jobs, we owe our citizens efficient and convenient services,”
Siim Kallas, vice president of transport at the European Commission
“The high speed railway network in no way hurts the aviation business,”
Siim Kallas, vice president of transport at the European Commission
We definitely need more airports and more runways in Europe,”
Siim Kallas, vice president of transport at the European Commission
“Demand has been great, in April nearly double passengers numbers and with no impact on yield, we are productive in many ways, but at the same time the biggest impact is the value of the Euro which itself has depreciated 15%. While our revenues are in Euros many of our costs are in US$ so all the advantages are eaten up for us. We can not control this,”
Tero Taskila, CEO of Estonian Air
“The Spanish market is one of the most competitive in Europe so that is why Vueling has been growing only a little. We are looking to maintain our cost base because it is the key for us to survive in this time of crisis,”
Fernando Estrada, Strategy & Alliances at Vueling
“We have a significant challenge in our business model, it used to be point-to-point business airline, now from this summer we are becoming a regional network carrier really focused on developing Tallinn as a hub and connecting the airport to the rest of the world but also increased domestically, this makes it difficult to say what the market is like as we have such great changes,”
Tero Taskila, CEO of Estonian Air
“Virgin Atlantic will probably look to join the Star Alliance,”
Kjartan Jonsson Director Network Planning, Icelandair
“We are carefully increasing frequencies and updating old-fashioned products, despite the craze for paying €9 for a flight, customers ultimately appreciate quality of service and frequency of service,”
Tero Taskila, CEO of Estonian Air
“We have more flights than countries with 10 times higher catchment, we have kept things very simple, single fleet, only flying to states within a certain distance,”
Kjartan Jonsson Director Network Planning, Icelandair
"We transfer about 40% of our 2 million passengers, we have about a 1% market share on transatlantic market,”
Kjartan Jonsson Director Network Planning, Icelandair
“There has been a -2.4% fall in capacity on transatlantic market but yield rising maybe more than 10%,”
Kjartan Jonsson Director Network Planning, Icelandair
“We want the lowest cost base possible, we want to provide best service without and so we are codesharing many services which is helping to costs down,”
Fernando Estrada Strategy & Alliances Directory, Vueling
“If the industry was to consolidate as in the US it would probably be more profitable, but it is not likely given this old continent and they way we do things,”
Kjartan Jonsson Director Network Planning, Icelandair
“To think that we can call off the dogs of war of incipient trade war in 15 months you may call me optimistic but I hope it can be done,”
Jeremy Robinson, Partner, Gates & Partners
“If government could give the industry a Christmas present the answer would be to scrap APD,”
Jeremy Robinson, Partner, Gates & Partners
“Airlines do not like to pay for slots, of our European operations the only we had to pay for was Heathrow more or less we got the flights we needed, that’s without this secondary trading which might be tricky and difficult to use,”
Markku Nokkala, Chief Officer Network & Planning, Oman Air
“we took a look at the Brazilian airports, we considered bidding for Puerto Rico and Barcelona, but we now prefer projects to construct the airport and then manage it. We offer a one-stop-shop which is proving more useful for us,”
Zafer MEŞE, Coordinator European Market Airline Marketing, Business Development & Investments TAV Airports Holding Co
“I think if you look at the UK you the tectonic plates are shifting quite rapidly, for example with sale of Gatwick, Edinburgh, we are looking at that space very carefully,”
Jochen Schnadt, Commercial Director at Monarch Airlines
“There is not that much growth in the European market, its more a case of rearranging the furniture,”
Jochen Schnadt, Commercial Director at Monarch Airlines
“If you really believe in our model then we will succeed even if we have turmoil, look at Georgia they are the best performing airports in Europe, Tunisia is really recovering to see the same progress as before the political crisis, in Libya we are back event though we had to fight the French administration,”
Zafer MEŞE, Coordinator European Market Airline Marketing, Business Development & Investments TAV Airports Holding Co
Related Content
