Will New Charter Carrier Bolster Bratislava’s Network?

Start-up charter carrier AirExplore aims to base itself in Bratislava with a B737-400. Slovakia's capital has lost capacity since bankrupt SkyEurope ended operations last September and Air Slovakia's AOC was revoked in March. Routes News examines the state of play in Bratislava and opportunities that the loss of its home carriers has created for new entrants.

Bratislava has lost capacity since Air Slovakia and SkyEurope's collapse. Routes News examines Flightbase schedules in Bratislava to assess the shape of the market today compared with 2008.

Source Flightbase 14-20 June 2008 v 2010

Between March 2008 and March 2010, Bratislava lost 44% of overall weekly seat capacity, largely as a result of the collapse of SkyEurope and Air Slovakia. A hungry Ryanair has increased its network in Bratislava during this period but has not replaced all of the lost capacity.

In 2008, when SkyEurope was the dominant carrier at Bratislava, 82% of traffic was low-cost. However, taking the carrier's demise last year and the revoking of national carrier Air Slovakia's AOC out of the picture, low-cost traffic makes up 87% of overall traffic today - although all of this traffic comes from Ryanair.

Eastern European LCC Wizz Air discontinued its only route from Rome into Bratislava in January 2009 when talks to establish a base there broke down, leaving Ryanair as the dominant carrier.

The year-on-year comparison also brings to light 20 routes that were once operated in 2008 and are no longer served today. 17 of these were SkyEurope or Air Slovakia routes, including to/from Athens, Barcelona and Rome.

Airport Competition

Competition from Vienna and Budapest, the two nearest major airports, has limited airlines' potential to reach new destinations in Bratislava.

Our gap analysis below shows the leading 10 European destinations served out of Bratislava, Budapest and Vienna, to see how their European networks compare, only Prague is served by Bratislava.

Source: Flightbase, 14-20 June, 2010

Bratislava Outlook

Despite the drop in capacity, Bratislava offers opportunities for existing and new carriers.

Bratislava's catchment area covers four countries: Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Austria. From an alliance perspective, Vienna is a strong Star Alliance hub and Budapest is a oneworld hub but traditioanlly neither has had a strong LCC presence.

Between March 2009 and 2010, IATA BSP data (Airport IS) shows that over 1.3 million passengers flew to and from Bratislava, with the majority of the traffic being point-to-point, which is unsurprising given the entrenched low-cost market. Just over 63,000 passengers travelled indirectly, and over 52,000 of these flew via Prague with CSA Czech Airlines.

Bratislava will continue to attract growth through new low-cost and charter services. Czech carrier Travel Service will increase flights this year from Bratislava to new charter destinations. The Slovakian capital has a stable population of around 450,000 and Slovakia's Finance Ministry recently estimated that the country's GDP will grow by 2.8% this year in 2010, according to a statement by its state secretary, František Palko.

Travel Service's entry into the Slovakian market demonstrates that the carrier believes in strong outbound demand for sunshine destinations.

New Market Opportunities

Air Explore will be supported by tour operators and will no doubt be supported by tour operators. It will target sunshine leisure destinations in Turkey, Greece, Spain and Egypt.

A potential stumbling block for AirExplore could be Ryanair's own explansion plans, as the low cost carrier has started operation to Greece and is sure to focus its own strategy on serving these markets from Bratislava.