August 2013 CAA provisional stats
Overall message - small pockets of good news, but also seeing stagnation compared to strong growth at Newcastle.
Aberdeen - DTV stagnant but Newcastle had a big improvement
Amsterdam - very pronounced shift by KLM customers away from DTV in favour of Newcastle, even after making allowances for Easyjet
Jersey - surprisingly positive, growing well. Route however is thin and very seasonal so don't get too excited.
Palma - pax number decrease possibly because of the move to a less-than-ideal day of the week. NCL showing strong growth to Palma in comparison
DTV had 14,042 pax in August, up 2.4 % on August 2012 - gain equates to 324 pax
DTV rolling year has 163,409 pax
Be cautious on the apparent growth - this seems to be caused by 299 charter pax to/from Hamburg. Not sure why the flight existed, but presumably some sort of one-off exception.
NCL had 527,591 pax in August, up 1.2 % on August 2012 - gain equates to 8,620 pax
NCL rolling year has 4,393,874 pax
In August 2013, for every 1 passenger at DTV, there were 37.6 passengers at NCL
As a historical reference, in August 2009 (i.e. post credit crunch), for every 1 passenger at DTV, there were 17.1 passengers at NCL
Aberdeen route for August
DTV - 2,771 pax (all scheduled), down 1.6% from 2,815 pax (2,738 scheduled, 77 charter), meaning a loss of 44 passengers. Looking only at scheduled, the route is up 1.2% or a gain of 33 passengers
NCL - 2,136 pax (all scheduled), up 21.6% from 1,757 pax (all scheduled), meaning a gain of 379 passengers
It is concerning that NCL is growing fast on the Aberdeen route while DTV remains stagnant
Jersey seasonal route for August
DTV - 636 pax, up 61.8% from 393 pax, meaning a gain of 243 passengers
NCL - 2,908 pax, up 33% from 2,186 pax, meaning a gain of 722 passengers
There were 4 Saturdays in August 2012 and 5 Saturdays in August 2013 - this would explain quite a lot of the jump in passengers numbers.
Palma route for August
DTV - 1,277 pax, down 11.6% from 1,446 pax meaning a loss of 169 passengers
NCL - 45,540 pax, up 9% from 41,784 pax meaning a gain of 3,756 passengers
Palma analysis:
Palma was on Saturdays in 2012 (4x in August 2012), but now Tuesdays (4x in August 2013). Going from 181 pax in August 2012 to 160 pax per flight in August 2013 may well be caused by going from a leisure-friendly Saturday to a leisure-challenging Tuesday
Amsterdam route for June
DTV - 8,858 pax (8,786 scheduled, 72 charter), down 1.4% from 8,981 (8,938 scheduled, 43 charter) pax meaning a loss of 123 passengers
NCL - 32,146 pax, up 32.6% from 24,242 pax meaning a gain of 7,904 passengers
NCL KLM-only (my estimate) - 27,224 pax, up 10.7% from 24,242 pax meaning a gain of 2,982 passengers
Note - Easyjet began NCL-AMS in Dec 2012, flying 4x weekly in August 2013
Amsterdam analysis:
There were 5 Saturdays in August 2013, but 4 in August 2012
DTV-AMS KLM load factor has fallen from 62.8% to 62.4%
On a Europe-wide basis, Easyjet saw a load factor in August of 92.8%
Easyjet flew NCL-AMS on 17 days in August. Using, a 156-seat A319 with 92.8% load factor (ie average of 140 pax turn up for a flight), we get 4,922 passengers, which falls far short of the NCL-AMS route being up by 7,904 passengers - this tells us KLM are seeing passenger numbers up by 12.3% on the NCL-AMS route, in contrast to DTV-AMS being down 1.7%
Even if we assume Easyjet had a 100% load factor, KLM are still seeing NCL doing 10.7% better year-on-year compared to 1.7% worse at DTV
While Easyjet and KLM have very different products, there is overlap for customers travelling point-to-point between NE England and the Netherlands - this may have led KLM on the NCL route (but probably less so on the DTV route) to lower prices slightly or perhaps improve their product offering to defend market share - thus stimulating growth on NCL-AMS and also sucking some passengers who might have used DTV towards NCL
KLM is seeing a very clear shift in emphasis by the overall passenger base away from MME to NCL, even if Easyjet are seeing 100% load factors on their NCL-AMS route.
Last edited by davidjohnson6; 29th Sep 2013 at 19:30.