Prospects for 2018
 

Posters in almost every airport or airline thread are talking up the prospects for next year, so I thought it would be worthwhile starting a general thread for this.

I'm generally an optimistic, but I came across this today:


Visitor numbers to UK hit record in July - BBC News

While holidays to Britain are rising, holidays from Britain have begun to fall....

A pessimistic soul might wonder if foreigners are visiting while they still can prior to Brexit creating havoc with international air service agreements, whilst Brits are staying at home due to nervousness about the economy over the next few years.

I believe new routes will remain flat, as seen on this forum and most new routes will come from terminated routes or reduced frequency on others. Passenger numbers will continue to rise in the European market due to the current over capacity that exists, with cheap flight tickets. This will then end after summer 18 and airlines will start to reduce frequencies and the industry will go into a slight decline with LCC airports and the regions suffering most.

A pretty realistic evaluation; I think Summer 2018 could be very difficult in the bucket and spade leisure market, and of course it'll always be airports outside of the London and Southeast that will bear the brunt.

I think certain business plans, eg Southend and Monarch, may have been predicated on continuing near double digit growth in traffic, and are therefore in doubt.

When Jet2 reported recently they did say that while (profitable) holiday sales were going well, flight-only ticket prices were soft. May also explain why Ryanair decided it was cheaper to cancel flights than hire in agency pilots.

I notice that Vueling seem to have dropped Alicante and Rome from EDI next year, and Norwegian seem to have dropped their summer routes from EDI except Barcelona. I think that expectations from several posters that present flight releases are just the start, and more will be added, will prove to be just wishful thinking.