Originally Posted by
El Bunto
Only if your premise is that airports must continually expand. London City is a counter-example; after rapid initial expansion it has settled for the past decade around the 4.5 million mark, rising and falling slightly with the economy but showing no ambition to become a mega-airport.
A couple of points; LCY is not a counter-example. Annual statistics show that LCY has expanded rapidly over the past decade, and has not settled as you suggest. In the past decade, passenger numbers have risen from 2,912,123 in 2007 to 4,330,439 in 2017. I don't know where you get your statistics from, but they certainly aren't from the CAA.
Furthermore, LCY is embarking on an ambitious terminal expansion, with the aim of increasing passenger numbers by another 2 million. LCY of course cannot become the next mega-airport, but that is solely because the airport is heavily constrained by its location. The airport is however showing ambition that it wants to keep expanding until it is no longer possible to do so.
Originally Posted by
El Bunto
If a business finds a niche and makes a profit why can't it just exist there? Why the constant demand for growth? Belfast City is point-to-point orientated, unlike Heathrow it doesn't depend on a depth of connections for its value. Perhaps it's as big as it's going to get, and maybe that's just fine.
BHD will undoubtedly always be a niche airport, given that its runway length severely restricts its potential route network to as far as the Mediterranean. However, niche does not mean zero growth.
The problem faced by the airport currently is that BHD is heavily reliant on Flybe. In 2018, 3.3 million seats are being offered from BHD. Of those, 2.3 million are offered by Flybe, and over 900,000 are offered by IAG. If you look at the statistics, the airport's reliance on Flybe is getting worse. Between 2014-2017, BHD passenger numbers increased by 4,701. Flybe carried 221,236 more passengers from BHD in 2017 than in 2014, representing a 15.3% increase. Flybe's BHD market share has therefore increased by 8.7% since 2014.
If you split passenger numbers into three categories; Flybe, IAG, other, the results are as follows;
2014 Market Share;
Flybe: 56.5%
IAG: 41.9%
Other: 1.6%
2017 Market Share;
Flybe: 65.2%
IAG: 32.5%
Other: 2.3%
2018 Estimated Market Share;
Flybe: 69.3%
IAG: 28.2%
Other: 2.5%
* 2018 estimate is based on seats for sale and past load factors
Being a niche airport is not a bad thing, but for the future survival of the airport, BHD management really need to diversify their airline portfolio. In 2014, the airport was served by five airlines. That's the same number as in 2018.
Of course, having one airline taking a majority of the market share isn't necessarily a bad thing, but BHD management should be very worried that their largest tenant is in financial difficulties, and have already announced that total network capacity will be reduced by as much as 20%, so Flybe could slash BHD capacity at any given moment. What is also worrying is that the airport's second largest airline, Aer Lingus has already severely cut both routes and capacity over the last few years, and is likely to continue doing so.
Ideally, the 'other' category of airlines should contain 4-5 airlines, and amount to a 10% market share. However in 2017, only 58,903 passengers did not fly with Flybe or IAG - that's just 1 in 40 passengers. This over-reliance on its largest tenants means that the airport would be in a very dangerous position if either Flybe or Aer Lingus were to axe more services from BHD.
Originally Posted by
El Bunto
I do agree that KLM expansion seems overdue. But bear in mind that since the started the Belfast City service they have also introduced the Dublin service which is now double-daily and may have drawn away potential for Belfast.
KLM announced their BHD intentions both before and after they commenced flights to DUB.
Originally Posted by
El Bunto
In that regard they are to be commended contrary to their fellow Euroairlines who open a Dublin service and consider that sufficient for 'Ireland' as a whole; Wow, Lufthansa, Air France, Iberia, TAP, Scandinavian, Turkish...
You are aware that the majority of the airlines you've mentioned clearly don't consider a DUB service to be sufficient for the island as a whole, as they operate to either ORK or SNN as well.
Air France: DUB, ORK
Lufthansa: DUB, SNN
Iberia: DUB, ORK
SWISS: DUB, ORK
SAS: DUB, SNN