Source: CAA Provisional stats April 2019 1004085 up 4.3% from 962715 in April 2018 but April 2017 was 1063571

Obviously April was an interesting month for mid and long-haul going east due to the Turkish MAX, Dubai runway maintenance, Turkmenistan ban and Pakistani airspace issues affecting India. On the positive side it has resulted in very good load factors on what did operate -

How many routes around the world average 538 per flight for a whole month (Manchester was over 500 as well - I made it around 521).

Note - if you download the Excel version of the International Route Analysis it gives you the March figures but the PDF version is fine, This is for BHX and I haven't checked other airports.

Pete

Source: CAA for the passenger figure and some rotations for 2018 (2018 average pax should be accurate) and FR24 for 2019, which will mean some inaccuracies. For load factors I used various aviation and airline websites. Note, these are Schedule routes only but include Thomas Cook and not TUI, which is not my choice just the way the CAA process the figures.

The 2017 figures are also shown and as you can see some routes such as Lisbon and Gibraltar remain vacant. Some 2018 load factors have not been calculated as aircraft types (configs) are not known on certain days.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....53f50915de.png
Some explanations needed as some big swings on certain routes.

Vienna, not much change but disappointing in as much as fewer frequencies and low factor not reflecting the change as hoped.

Brussels is a huge difference as it was the A319 the year before and only a 3% improvement in load factor so no problem filling the A319 but no doubt cheaper on the CRJ9.

As for Star Alliance European routes, Munich has seem more capacity via bigger aircraft, Frankfurt steady but Copenhagen shrinking. Zurich is a mystery as there were a few non-ops flights - so pre-planned cancellations which would explain for some loss of pax.

I think Amsterdam saw a reduction of one Flybe and one KLM daily flight although more seats on existing services for the latter but a remarkable load factor.

Not really much comment on the FR and Jet2 routes although a few seem to able to take more capacity but again I suppose why risk yields if you can fill them at current prices.

Flybe again seem not be affected by the takeover too much and although some routes were down, overall they look fine - superficially of course.

easyjet ended daily GVA at with the beginning of April rather than mid-April and hence the reduction but load factors improved (and hopefully yields) although prices went south in late April which is no surprise.

Wizz loads seem generally okay if not spectacular as I believe their network wide load factor is a bit higher (May was 93%).

Long-haul/medium-haul was excellent considering what went on although perhaps it might have been hoped that Qatar would gain more from the Dubai runway closure. Turkish you could say is not moving that much but hampered this year by the MAX problems.

Pakistan is still below 2017 in terms of passenger figures but better load factors.

Dublin, Shannon and Cork were affected by the rugby semi-final at the Ricoh with no doubt some light inbound and outbound legs at times.

Pete

Larnaca has very poor winter service from the whole of the UK; These days most of the charters and quasi schedules go into Paphos catering for the villa owner market especially near Christmas.

THE EASTERN COAST RESORTS ARE DEAD AFTER THE END OF SEPTEMBER !

Indeed from November through to April the weather isn’t exactly brilliant either .

Spent the entire month of February in Dekalia some years ago on a construction project for the MOD and it was seriously cold and wet . Indeed went up Trudos on one weekend skiing !

Cyprus isn’t a winter sun resort island !