Study of Low Cost Traffic Patterns - Eurocontrol

EUROPEAN ORGANISATION

FOR THE SAFETY OF AIR NAVIGATION

EUROCONTROL EXPERIMENTAL CENTRE

EEC Note No. 06/04

Project NCD-F-FM

Issued: March 2004

The information contained in this document is the property of the EUROCONTROL Agency and no part should be

reproduced in any form without the Agency’s permission The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views or policy of the Agency.

Study of Low Cost Traffic Patterns

REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE

Reference EEC Note No. 06/04

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Originator EEC/NCD

(Network Capacity and Demand Management)

Originator (Corporate author) Name/Location : EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre B.P.15 F-91222 Brétigny-sur-Orge CEDEX France. Telephone: +33 (0) 1 69 88 75 00

Sponsor

Sponsor (Contract Authority) Name/Location EUROCONTROL Agency Rue de la Fusée, 96 B-1130 BRUXELLES Telephone: +32-(0)2-729 90 11

Title : ANALYSIS OF LOW COST TRAFFIC PATTERNS

Authors Virginie ALLAIN (SOFREAVIA) Tarek BEN OMRANE (SOFREAVIA)

Date 03/04

Pagesiv + 35

Figs 12

Tables 16

Annexes 3

References 5

Project NCD

Sponsor Task No. NCD-F-FM

Period Nov03 -Jan04

Distribution Statement : (a) Controlled by : Head of NCD business area (b) Special Limitations (if any) : None (c) Copy to NTIS : No Descriptors (keywords) : Low cost carriers, secondary airports, point to point network

Abstract : This statistical study is aimed at analysing the low cost carriers flight patterns and comparing them with the rest of ECAC traffic. It is based on 5 traffic days selected in 2002 and 2003. No significant differences were identified between low cost flights and the other flight patterns. However, the departure and arrival flows are significantly different from the rest of the traffic, as LCCs have decided to develop their operations at secondary airports which may add capacity constraints by increasing TMA flow management and co-ordination problems bearing on the controller’s workload.

FOREWORD

The ACARE Strategy Research Agenda recognizes that the current air traffic management paradigm has serious limitations and will be unable to sustain current expectations of air transport growth in the medium to long-term.

It is clear that at the 2020 time horizon, revolutionary measures is a necessity to response to the group of personalities visions 2020 objectives1. The future ATM system will be increasingly automated whilst the human will retain a significant, but different, role. In this system it is envisioned that traffic trajectories will be predicted in accordance with the level of system capabilities; defined roles and responsibilities of human and machine, ground and air elements addressing uncertainties and changes.

In regards of this vision, one strategic axis in the Network & Capacity Demand Management (NCD) Research Area deals with the investigation of new airspace issues and how to accommodate airspace design and management with new constraints. In particular, the impact of new types of traffic needs to be assessed, since it is likely that the future will see a wider range of different categories of air vehicles and air transporters.

In this context, NCD commissioned in 2003 a short study with the objective to look at the specific impact of low cost aircraft operators on the usage of airspace capacity.

The emergence of low cost carriers has created new markets (UK-Carcassone, for instance), new city-pairs with reasonably dense traffic. Hence, the low costs carriers choice to link non-saturated airports platforms can be seen as a way by which optimal usage of available capacity can be sought. The issue is that the airspace infrastructure may not have been designed so as to accommodate these new traffic trends, and the purpose of the study was to analyse the difference, if any, in the flight patterns of low cost carriers and identify the possible issues this creates, now or in the future.

Patrick KY Head of Network Capacity and Demand Management

1 As in the Group of Personalities vision for 2020, the traffic will triple, and 95% of flights will be within 15 minutes of their schedule, in all weather conditions.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION_______________________________________________________________ 1

1.1 Objectives ________________________________________________________________ 1

1.2 Scope of the study _________________________________________________________ 1

1.3 Traffic days _______________________________________________________________ 1

1.4 Data and tool used in the study_______________________________________________ 2

2 STUDY METHODOLOGY________________________________________________________ 2

3 OVERALL STATISTICS _________________________________________________________ 3

3.1 Characteristics of the sample ________________________________________________ 3

3.2 Traffic Share_______________________________________________________________ 3

3.3 Distribution of Low Cost movements by LCC ___________________________________ 5

3.4 Geographical analysis ______________________________________________________ 7

3.4.1 LCC network _________________________________________________________ 7

3.4.2 Main airports operating LC flights _________________________________________ 9

3.4.3 Main LC airport-pairs and LC city-pairs____________________________________ 11

3.5 Length and time distribution ________________________________________________ 16

4 TECHNICAL STATISTICS ______________________________________________________ 18

4.1 Aircraft type analysis ______________________________________________________ 18

4.2 Flight level analysis _______________________________________________________ 19

4.2.1 Average Requested Flight Level compared to flight distance___________________ 19

4.2.2 Most Requested FLs for flight lengths included between 200 and 500 NM ________ 20

4.3 ACC and Sector analysis ___________________________________________________ 21

4.3.1 Sample characteristics ________________________________________________ 21

4.3.2 ACC analysis________________________________________________________ 21

4.4 Sector analysis ___________________________________________________________ 25

4.4.1 Result by movements _________________________________________________ 25

5 SYNTHESIS _________________________________________________________________ 28

6 CONCLUSION _______________________________________________________________ 29

ANNEX 1 : ICAO CODE OF SELECTED LOW COST CARRIERS __________________________ 32

ANNEX 2 : MAIN AIRPORT AND CITY PAIRS__________________________________________ 33

ANNEX 3 : STATISTICAL PROCESSING OF THE DATA _________________________________ 34


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1 Introduction 1.1 Objectives The emergence of low cost carriers has developed new market segments in Air Transport. From an ATM standpoint those developments translate into fast-increasing traffic between new city pairs. Hence, the low cost carriers choice to link non-saturated airports platforms can be seen as a way by which optimal usage of available capacity can be sought. However, the current airspace structure may not have been designed so as to accommodate these new traffic trends, and the purpose of this study is to conduct a preliminary statistical analysis of flight patterns, comparing low cost carriers characteristics with the rest of the traffic and identifying potential challenges to ATM adaptability in the near future.

1.2 Scope of the study This statistical study is aimed at analysing the low cost carriers flight patterns and comparing them with the rest of ECAC traffic. This document does not attempt to define formally any economic-operational criteria about what makes an aircraft operator “low cost” or not. The approach was to establish a comprehensive list of so-called “low-cost” carriers, to be used as a filter in the analysis, and to analyse a few representative days of real traffic, selecting a mix of week days and week-end departure days, as low cost carriers target inter alia the “week end jaunt” travellers. To initiate a trend analysis, the interval between some samples was taken as about one year.

The low cost carriers analysed in this document were taken to be : Aer Arann, Air Berlin GmbH & Co. Luftverkehrs KG, Azzurra Air, Debonair, Easyjet, FlyBe, German Wings, Germania Express, Go Fly Ltd., Hapag Loyd Express, Martinair, Meridiana, Ryanair, Sabre Airways Ltd, Sky Europe, Virgin Express (Belgium), Virgin Express (Ireland) Ltd., Volare.com.

Some of these have started operations very recently, and therefore make only minor contributions to the traffic analysed in this document; others no longer exist today but contributed to the traffic of the days selected of the study.

The low cost flight patterns have been characterised by establishing:

• Global statistics, which gives a global picture of the low cost flight pattern;

• Technical statistics, which enter more in depth in the ATM aspects of the flights.

In view of the data/tools used and the duration of the study, only preliminary results could be provided which however allowed us to highlight general trends.

1.3 Traffic days 5 traffic days were selected for this study:

• Monday, the 14th October 2002;

• Monday, the 16th June 2003;

• Friday, the 20th June 2003;

• Monday, the 15th September 2003;

• Friday, the 19th September 2003.


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1.4 Data and tool used in the study CFMU flight data, provided by Eurocontrol, have been extracted from the CFMU ALL-FT files based on the latest known AOs’ demand (FTFM model). The ALL-FT file contains the flight data of all flights scheduled in the ECAC area on a given day. It gives the 4D profiles computed by the ETFMS on the basis of the data forwarded by the IFPS, the system in charge of collecting the AOs’ demand.

2 Study methodology The study has characterised LCCs flight patterns by examining successively the following criteria:

a) High level criteria with statistics on:

- low cost traffic share in the core area; - relative weight of the main LCCs on the low cost traffic; - LCCs network; - airports operating low cost flights and the low cost operations weight on

their total activities; - low cost traffic per main airport-pairs and city-pairs; - length, duration distribution of low cost flights; - breakdown of LCCs peak hour and comparison with the other types of

flights. b) Technical criteria with statistics on:

- Most used aircraft types by LCCs;

- Most requested Flight level according to the flight length;

- ACCs and sectors most impacted by low cost movements.

The statistics - expressed in terms of percentage of flights - were the result of a three-steps process applied to each of the above mentioned item:

1) extraction of the relevant data, 2) statistical processing of the data, 3) analysis of the results.

The first two steps were automated using a set of scripts and the ISAAC GEO visualisation tool. The last step was mainly based on expert judgement.

The statistical processing of data is described in annex 3.


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3 Overall statistics 3.1 Characteristics of the sample The sample is comprised of the flights whose date and time of departure fit in the five traffic days under consideration: the 14th October 2002, the 16th June 2003, the 20th June 2003, the 15th September 2003 and the 19th September 2003. For instance, flights arriving on those days but having departed the day before have been excluded from the sample.

The following table describes the size of the sample for each selected traffic day:

Traffic day Number of flights

14th October 2002 25 728

16th June 2003 27 322

20th June 2003 27 766

15th September 2003 27 719

19th September 2003 29 051

Table 1 : Data selection

3.2 Traffic Share The following graph represents the average2 LCC traffic share identified in our sample.

93.5%

6.5%

LCCs flights

Other flights

Figure 1: Average LCC traffic Share

The LCCs flights are taking a significant share of the European market as the low cost movements represent around 7% of the total movements in Europe. This figure is consistent with the Eurocontrol STATFOR study [1] in which the low cost share for the eight first months of 2003 was around 7 %.

2 Average based on the five selected traffic days


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As highlighted in table 2, the evolution of low cost market share is characterised by a fairly steady growth between 2002 and 2003 resulting from a succession of step-changes as new carriers were entering the market while other disappeared. Even if only one traffic day for 2002 has been considered in the analysis, there is no denying that the low cost share has progressed significantly. This trend shows that LCCs have been less impacted than the rest of the aviation community by the aeronautical crisis and the 09/11 effect.

Traffic day Total traffic analysed Low cost traffic Low cost share

14th October 2002 25 728 1 460 5.6%

16th June 2003 27 322 1 862 6.8%

20th June 2003 27 766 1 900 6.8%

15th September 2003 27 719 1 833 6.6%

19th September 2003 29 051 1 899 6.5%

Table 2 : Description of the traffic sample for each selected day

Comparing the 2002 traffic day (14th October) and the average of four 2003 traffic days, we observed that:

• the growth of the low cost traffic was around 30%;

• the growth of the other traffic was around 8%;

• the share of the LC traffic goes from 5.6% to 6.7%.

Obviously, these figures must be carefully interpreted because of the small size of the sample, but they show clearly the increasingly part of the LCC in the European sky.

The low cost traffic in the ECAC area is growing faster than conventional traffic and has better surmounted the recent aeronautical crisis.


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3.3 Distribution of Low Cost movements by LCC The following tables give the market share of every LCC for the following traffic days: 14th October 2002 and 19th September 2003.

The low cost market has been captured by very few established airlines whose expansion and success compete now with the major European operators.

Rank LCC ICAO code3

% of low cost movements Rank LCC ICAO code % of low cost

movements

1 RYR 23% 1 RYR 26%

2 EZY 17% 2 EZY 25%

3 BEE 16% 3 BER3 14%

4 BER4 12% 4 BEE 11%

5 GOE 11% 5 ISS 7%

6 ISS 8% 6 HLX 4%

7 VEX 4% 7 AZI 4%

8 REA 3% 8 REA 4%

9 MPH5 3% 9 VEX 3%

10 AZI 2% 10 MPH4 2%

Table 3 : Top 10 LCCs on 14th October 2002 Table 4 : Top 10 LCCs on 19th September 2003

More than half the total of low cost movements are generated by less than 3 LCCs. There are not many players today and only two are really making money. As highlighted on the next graph, Ryanair and Easyjet operated more than 51% of the total LCCs movements on the 19th September 2003. The steps on the graph appear when either a LCC has disappeared (19th September 2003 graph) or a LCC has been created (14th October 2002 graph). The increase in Easyjet operations can be partly explained by the purchase of the Go Fly carrier (which is therefore not found in the 19th September 2003 ranking).

Another interesting observation is that 4 LCCs are operating almost three quarters of the total low cost operations.

Thus, even if the number of LCCs is steadily increasing, the major part of the market is hold by few operators already well implanted and of a significant size in terms of aircraft and passengers.

3 See annex 1 4 In this study, we assumed that all the activity of Air Berlin could be classified as low cost even if they are operating some charter flights 5 In this study, we assumed that all the activity of Martinair could be classified as low cost even if they are operating some charter flights


6

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

RYR EZY BEE BER GOE ISS VEX REA MPH AZI HLX VRE DEB

14th October 2002 19th September 2003

Figure 2 : Average LCC cumulative movements share

Two low cost operators generate half of the total European low cost movements.

Four LCCs generate almost three quarters of the total low cost movements.

Most of the low cost market is shared by a limited number of well-established operators.


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3.4 Geographical analysis

3.4.1 LCC network The following picture depicts the network of LCCs which operated flights on the 19th September 20036.

Figure 3 : LCC network on 19th September 2003

The network is dense with lot of point to point liaisons that do not necessarily match with the main city-pairs.

However, the network is mainly concentrated on Western Europe and especially the United Kingdom as further explained in the next graph.

The diagram below gives the main departure and destination countries used by low cost flights. Only those countries where the LCC traffic exceeds 1 % of the total LCC traffic have been mentioned.

Six countries stand out from the sample, namely the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland and France. The statistics correspond to the 19th September 2003 but the figures are the same for the other selected traffic days.

6 We have intentionally excluded from the picture the Martinair and the Air Berlin liaisons which were identified as charter rather than low cost (2% of all low cost flights)


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Almost 40% of low cost movements (incl. arrivals and departures) are operated from/to United Kingdom. The major LCCs have established at least one of their main home bases in London: this is the case for Ryanair, Easyjet and Flybe which altogether account for over 62% of all LCCs movements.

Italy and Germany represent respectively 14 and 12% of total low cost operations with over 400 low cost movements a day.

Then comes Spain with 9% while Ireland and France represent each 7% of total LCC movements. It should be noted that the LCCs in our sample are neither France nor Spain-based, which means that France and Spain are important as the receiving ends of LCC traffic from more northerly countries (UK, Ireland, Germany).

Figure 4: Distribution of LC operations by countries – 19th September 2003

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600

United Kingdom

Italy

Germany

Spain

Ireland

France

Netherlands

Belgium

Greece

Sw itzerland

Sw eden

Portugal

Austria

Denmark

Turkey

19th September 2003 LCCs departures and arrivals

Departures Arrivals


9

3.4.2 Main airports operating LC flights The development of LCCs has driven the development of secondary airports in around major European capitals. In the recent years, secondary airports have proliferated in seemingly unexpected areas, although located in general not too far from major airports.

LCCs have created their own parallel network, distinct from that existing at the primary airports. Indeed, most of main European airports are affected by capacity constraints related to the saturation of infrastructures (incl. air traffic control) and scarce airport slots possibilities which make the access to their resources difficult for new comers. By choosing less congested airports, LCCs reduce their turnaround times and achieve extra rotations on the busiest routes, thereby maximising the utilisation rates of their aircraft. Also, LCCs are attracted by airports that practise less costly landing and handling fees.

A few LCCs however made the choice to count on major airports such as Amsterdam, Paris CDG, Munich, etc, to propose an alternative to the traditional full-service carriers through special low fare services focussed on a niche market. This is the case of Easyjet, which took advantage of the bankruptcy of Air Lib to get some slots at Paris airports. This strategy is not commonplace but it is not insignificant as proven by the sixth position of Amsterdam airport in the table below.

Rank7 Airport Id Number of low cost movements8

% of low cost operation

LCC share on airport operations

Rank on the total traffic sample9

1 London Stansted 391 11.2% 70% 19

2 Dublin 174 5.0% 32% 21

3 London Luton 125 3.6% 49% 43

4 London Gatwick 98 2.8% 13% 11

5 Edinburgh 85 2.4% 23% 33

6 Amsterdam 82 2.3% 7% 4

7 Birmingham 76 2.2% 19% 32

8 Palma de Mallorca 70 2.0% 14% 22

9 Belfast 64 1.8% 44% 71

10 Köln/Bonn 62 1.8% 13% 23

Table 5 : Top 10 airports operating LCCs

The low cost flight operations (arrival or departure) at the above mentioned airports represent 45.1 % of the total LCC operations in the whole ECAC area.

7 The total number of airports operating low cost flights is 229. 8 Arrival or departure. 9 The total number of airports described in the sample is 1 614.


10

Three out of the four LCC airports on top of the list are located in London. London Stansted can be considered as the main LCC airport in Europe with more than 390 movements a day representing 70% of the total movements at the airport. This airport has recorded a rapid growth since last years thanks to the development of low cost flights (especially Ryanair) and the congestion of the two main London airports: Heathrow and Gatwick. Amsterdam Schipol is well placed in this ranking but the ratio of LC flights for this airport remains very low (less than 7% of total airport movements).

The results are quite different if we focus only on the LCC traffic share of the airport.

The following table gives the list of airports sorted out according to the LCC share of their total operations.

In the top 10 of this list, there is only one airport handling over 50 movements a day (Stansted airport).

The first LC airport in terms of percentage of operations is Galway airport with 85% of its movements generated by Aer Arann Express (flight from/to Dublin, Edinburg and Luton).

The score of Charleroi airport is noticeable, this airport being one of the main Ryanair home bases.

Rank Airport Id LCC share on airport operations

Number of low cost movements

Rank in the top airport ranking by mvts

1 Galway 85% 14 68

2 Brussels South Charleroi 78% 39 25

3 London Stansted 70% 391 1

3 Frankfurt Hahn 70% 47 17

5 Lübeck 67% 12 76

6 Kerry 65% 14 70

7 Sligo 64% 3 127

8 Stockholm Skavsta 59% 22 44

9 Glasgow Prestwick 56% 42 23

…

13 London Luton 49% 125 3

…

30 Dublin 32% 174 2

Table 6 : Main airports classified by LCC share on airport operations


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3.4.3 Main LC airport-pairs and LC city-pairs

3.4.3.1 LC airport-pairs The main city pairs correspond with short haul flights within the United Kingdom, Italy or Germany. The other liaisons link UK with the main European capitals such as Amsterdam, Paris or Dublin.

Rank10 Liaisons (both ways) between Number of low

cost movements

% of total low cost movements

Weight of low cost operations on the

liaison

1 Dublin London Stansted 26 1.4% 87%

2 Glasgow Prestwick London Stansted 21 1.1% 100%

3 Roma Fiumicino Olbia 17 0.9% 100%

4 Roma Ciampino London Stansted 16 0.8% 100%

5 Cork Dublin 15 0.8% 54%

6 Liverpool Belfast 14 0.7% 54%

6 Glasgow Birmingham 14 0.7% 48%

8 Edinburgh Birmingham 13 0.7% 46%

9 Milano Malpensa Olbia 12 0.6% 92%

9 Glasgow London Luton 12 0.6% 100%

9 Southampton Guernsey 12 0.6% 71%

9 Amsterdam London Luton 12 0.6% 86%

9 Paris Charles De Gaulle Birmingham 12 0.6% 52%

9 Edinburgh London Stansted 12 0.6% 67%

9 Köln/Bonn Berlin Tegel 12 0.6% 21%

9 London Luton Edinburgh 12 0.6% 100%

Table 7: Main airport pairs operated by LCCs – 19th September 2003

16 airport-pairs represent 12 % of all the low cost traffic. It is worth noting that some liaisons are exclusively operated by LCCs such as:

- London Stansted – Glasgow Prestwick

- London Luton – Edinburgh

- London Stansted - Roma Ciampino

- London Luton - Belfast

10 The number of airport-pairs operated by LCC amounts to 524. The total airport-pairs of the sample is 7 176.


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All the airport-pairs are linking an airport located either in UK or in Italy except the liaisons Dublin – Cork and Köln – Berlin.

The main airport-pairs are linking secondary airports that are located in big metropolitan areas. The following table lists the metropolitan regions with secondary airports served by LCCs.

Metropolitan region Secondary airport LCC

London Stansted Ryanair

London Luton Easyjet

Paris Beauvais Ryanair

Toulouse Carcassone Ryanair

Frankfurt Hahn Ryanair

Brussels Charleroi Ryanair

Milan Orio al serio Ryanair

Manchester Liverpool Easyjet

Rome Ciampino Ryanair

Stockholm Skvasta Ryanair

Oslo Torp Ryanair

Glasgow Prestwick Ryanair

Copenhagen Malmo Ryanair

Hamburg Lübeck Ryanair

Table 8 : European Metropolitan areas with secondary airports

The main airport-pairs for the total traffic are given in annex 2.

Looking at the ranking of airport-pairs according to the weight of low cost traffic, one can note that the heaviest LCC airport-pair in terms of movements is only in the 296th position despite the fact that 87% of the liaison is operated by LCCs. Many liaisons are operated exclusively by LCCs (290 airport-pairs were operated exclusively by LCCs on the day under consideration for this analysis).


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Rank Liaisons (both ways) between Number of low cost movements

Rank in the top airport-pairs

Weight of low cost operations on the

liaison

1 Glasgow Prestwick London Stansted 21 2 100%

2 Roma Fiumicino Olbia 17 3 100%

3 Roma Ciampino London Stansted 16 4 100%

4 Glasgow London Luton 12 9 100%

4 London Luton Edinburgh 12 9 100%

5 Hahn London Stansted 11 17 100%

6 Birmingham Belfast City 10 20 100%

6 London Luton Paris Charles De Gaulle 10 20 100%

6 Belfast London Luton 10 20 100%

6 Dublin Galway 10 20 100%

…

296 Dublin London Stansted 26 1 87%

Table 9: 100% LCC airport-pairs – 19 September 2003

However, it is important to mention that these liaisons are only comprised of airport-pairs, not city-pairs. If we look at the city-pairs, the results may be quite different as there may be more than one airport deserving the same city.

3.4.3.2 City-pairs analysis The analysis of the most operated city-pairs shows that London is the main metropolitan area from/to which LC flights are departing/arriving. The most important LC traffic is between London and Scotland/Dublin areas but these links are also significantly served by conventional carriers (these liaisons are ranked between the 4th and 6th position in the list of city-pairs traffic - see the most operated city pairs in annex 2). This denotes that these liaisons are very busy with LC operations representing from 30 to 41% of the total movements.


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Rank11 Liaisons (both ways) between Number of low cost

movements

Number of total

movements

% of low cost

movements

Weight of low cost

operations on the liaison

Rank on the total

sample12

1 London Dublin 46 112 2% 41% 5

2 Glasgow London 43 109 2% 39% 6

3 London Edinburgh 35 115 2% 30% 4

4 Belfast London 34 54 2% 63% 31

5 Nice London 21 47 1% 45% 42

5 London Barcelona 21 45 1% 47% 48

5 London Amsterdam 21 103 1% 20% 7

8 Milano Olbia 20 29 1% 69% 109

9 Manchester Dublin 18 43 1% 42% 53

10 Roma Olbia 17 24 1% 71% 154

Table 10: Main city pairs operated by LCCs – 19th September 2003

The ranking of city-pairs by percentage of low cost movements shows that there is a significant amount of liaisons operated exclusively by LCCs. This is typically the case of liaisons between Dublin and some cities in UK.

However their weight onto the total number of LC movements is not really important since the first 100% LC liaison is only ranked at the 27th position of top LC city-pairs with only 10 movements a day.

11 The total number of city-pairs operated by LCC is 453. 12 The total number of city-pairs described in the sample is 5 577.


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Rank Liaisons (both ways) between Rank in the top city pairs

Number of LC movements

% of LC movements on the city pair

1 Dublin Galway 27 10 100%

1 Kerry Dublin 37 9 100%

1 Leeds Belfast 40 8 100%

1 Newcastle Paris 40 8 100%

1 Leeds Dublin 40 8 100%

1 London Treviso 40 8 100%

1 Belfast Southampton 62 6 100%

1 Dublin Southampton 62 6 100%

1 London Dortmund 62 6 100%

1 Birmingham Cork 62 6 100%

1 Hambourg London 62 6 100%

1 Glasgow Paris 62 6 100%

… … … … … …

273 London Dublin 1 46 41%

… … … … … …

288 Glasgow London 2 43 39%

… … … … … …

318 London Edinburgh 3 35 30% Table 11: 100% LCC city-pairs – 19 September 2003

The low cost traffic network is dense with lots of point to point liaisons and a relatively high traffic density over the United Kingdom since almost 40% of low cost movements are operated from/to UK. However, other states are standing out from the sample but to a lesser extent, namely Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland and France.

The main city-pairs operated by LCCs are correspond with short haul flights between London/Ireland or London/Scotland or within Italy or Germany. The other liaisons link UK with major European capitals such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt or Paris.


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3.5 Length and time distribution The following graphs describe the distributions of length and duration of low cost and non-low cost flights.

The percentages of traffic movements are cumulative and have been calculated on the total movements of each category of flight.

0%

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50 150 250 350 450 550 650 750 850 950 >1000

Length [NM]

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f flig

hts

LC traffic non-LC traffic

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30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360 390 420 450 >480

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% o

f flig

hts


Figure 5 : Average length and time distribution

The two graphs show that low cost and non-low cost traffic have similar characteristics in terms of length and duration even if we can notice a slightly shorter trend for low cost flights. Indeed, 80% of the low cost flights last less than 2 hours and more than 95 % less than 3 hours. We can observe the same trend for the length characteristics: 60% of the low cost flights have a distance inferior to 500 NM (50% between 200 and 500 NM).

These figures confirm the fact that LCC are mainly focused on short, medium haul flights and do not interfere on the long haul market. This is typically due to the low cost inherent strategy, concentrating their operations on frequency with quick turn-arounds on secondary airports to maximise the use of their aircraft.


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• Departure peak distribution

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4%

5%

6%

7%

0h 2 h 4h 6h 8h 10h 12h 14h 16h 18h 20h 22h

%of

flig

hts


Figure 6: Average departure time distribution

As figure 6 shows, the distributions of low cost traffic and non-low cost traffic departure times in the day are very similar. Almost all peaks are located in the same periods which may lead to capacity issues.

The low cost traffic has similar characteristics in terms of length and duration as other types of intra European liaisons.

80% of low cost flight times are inferior to 2 hours while 50% of low cost flight length are included between 200 and 500 Nm.


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4 Technical statistics 4.1 Aircraft type analysis LCCs are operating only 27 different aircraft types. As clearly described in the following table13, the B737 Family is representing by far the most used aircraft among these airlines.

The LCC aircraft types correspond to typical short – mid haul turbo jet aircraft with low operating costs.

Rank Aircraft type % of low cost a/c type

Cumulative % of low cost a/c type

1 B738 23% 23% 2 B733 21% 44% 3 B737 14% 59% 4 B732 9% 68% 5 MD82 5% 73% 6 B462 4% 78% 7 B463 4% 81% 8 B734 3% 84% 9 AT43 2% 86%

10 DH8D 2% 89% 11 DH8C 2% 91% 12 DH8B 1% 92% 13 AT72 1% 93% 14 A320 1% 94% 15 RJ70 1% 95% 16 B763 1% 96% 17 RJ85 1% 96% 18 MD11 1% 97% 19 B461 1% 97%

Table 12 : Average of main LCC aircraft types

As described in the above table, more than 77% of LC aircraft types are B737. Indeed, in order to reduce the training, licensing, maintenance cost, most of the low cost aircraft are operating one type of aircraft. This maximises the recruitment and training of staff and allows the airline to move aircraft around the network with greater ease than a traditional airline, which may have many different aircraft types.

It is worth noting that most of the aircraft are turbojets (91% of the LC aircraft) which have their optimum cruise FL above FL 300.

13 Only aircraft type representing more than 1% of the total LCCs aircraft were presented in the table.

91% of aircraft types operated by LCCs are turbojets.

77% of aircraft types operated by LCCs are B737 which correspond to the typical short/medium haul aircraft for intra European liaisons.


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4.2 Flight level analysis

4.2.1 Average Requested Flight Level compared to flight distance The following figures describe the RFL distribution towards the flight distance. The vertical bars are representing the standard deviation around the average RFL for a given distance.

0%

5%

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20%

25%

30%

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Figure 7 : Distribution of the RFL according to the flight distance

Considering the distance window [200 – 500 NM] which concerns more than the half of the low cost traffic (see section 4.5), we can note that the most requested average FLs are varying between FL 190 and FL 320 (approximately the same as for the rest of the traffic since varying between FL 180 to FL 300).

It is most interesting to note also the main requested FL for LC flights which is slightly different from the other carriers. The main flight distance flown by LCCs is 350 Nm which corresponds to an average RFL of 290 varying from FL240 to FL330. Concerning the other type of flights, the main flight distance flown is equal to 300 NM which corresponds to an average RFL of 250 varying from FL190 to FL300.

If we look closer to the FL240 which is the last FL of the lower airspace (for most of the ACCs) we can observe that it corresponds to flight distance included between 250 and 300 NM for LC flights and between 250 and 450 NM for all the rest of the traffic, taking into account the standard deviations.


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4.2.2 Most Requested FLs for flight lengths included between 200 and 500 NM

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Figure 8: Average RFL distribution for flight lengths included between 200 and 500 NM

FLs in lower and upper airspace are nearly equally requested for non-LC flights: Lower airspace RFLs represent around 40% of the total RFLs.

Concerning LC flights, the RFLs requested in the upper airspace represent 71%. This result is due to the fact that the most used aircraft type among LCCs is the B737 which has its optimum FL in the upper airspace.

Most used FLs for LCCs:

- FL 230, one of the last FLs before reaching upper airspace;

- FL 320, optimum FL for the most used aircraft category (B737)

Most used FLs for other traffic:

- FL 230;

- FL 280;

- FL 290.

The most requested FLs for a flight length included between 200 and 500 Nm are very similar for low cost and non-low cost flights varying from FL 180 to FL 320 and implies a concentration on these FLs since LCC impact on certain strata is superior to proportional LCC traffic growth.

RFLs distribution between lower and upper airspace is also relatively the same for both types of traffic corresponding to:

• 71% of RFLs in the upper airspace for LC flights;

• 60% of RFLs in the upper airspace for non-LC flights.


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4.3 ACC and Sector analysis

4.3.1 Sample characteristics For the sectors and ACCs analysis, only flight profiles above FL 210 were analysed as we only had CFMU sectors starting from this FL.

All the results presented in this section are average of the five selected traffic days.

4.3.2 ACC analysis

4.3.2.1 Result by movements The following table lists the ACCs the most overflown by low cost carriers.

ACC Id Average of daily LCC movements

Average of daily other movements

Average of daily total movements

% of LCC operations on the ACC

EG1 1 065 6 070 7 135 15%

LFB 843 7 896 8 739 10%

EG0 833 4 055 4 888 17%

EGP 769 3 342 4 110 19%

LFR 755 6 207 6 962 11%

EBM 692 4 327 5 019 14%

LSA 608 6 711 7 319 8%

EG2 603 2 093 2 696 22%

EDU 560 4 412 4 972 11%

LFE 549 5 216 5 765 10%

LFM 524 6 367 6 891 8%

EDY 515 5 274 5 789 9%

LFF 445 7 119 7 564 6%

EGC 391 956 1 347 29%

EDB 383 2 544 2 927 13%

LEC 333 3 707 4 040 8%

EGD 305 782 1 087 28%

LKA 255 3 546 3 801 7%

EBB 196 1 409 1 605 12%

EHD 192 1 586 1 777 11%

Table 13 : Average of main ACCs overflown by LCCs

The top 5 ACCs the most overflown by LCCs are all located either in UK or in France. For these centres, the low cost flights are representing between 10 and 19% of their activities.


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Figure 9 : Average ACCs the most impacted by LCCs (rank by movements)

The above graph highlights the fact that the most impacted ACCs by low cost flights (in terms of movements) do not systematically correspond to the centres with the most important LC share.

Low cost flights are representing more than 20% of the total controlled traffic only for three centres among the top 20 detailed in table 13. These ACCs are:

• EG2;

• EGC;

• EGD.

It is worth noting that these centres are all located in UK.

4.3.2.2 Results by percentage of LCC operations As mentioned before, the impact of LC flights on the activity of an ACC is not only correlated to the number of LC flights the ACC has to control but also to the share of the ACC activity that these flights are representing.

The following table presents the list of ACCs classified by share of LC flights controlled.


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Rank

(out of 60) ACC Id % of LCC

operations Average of daily LCC

movements Average of daily total

movements Rank by LCC movements

1 EGS 35% 43 123 36

2 EID 30% 50 168 33

3 EGC 29% 391 1 347 14

4 EGD 28% 305 1 087 17

5 LEB 28% 4 14 55

6 EG2 22% 603 2 696 8

7 LHD 22% 1 2 61

8 LPF 19% 5 24 53

9 EGP 19% 769 4 110 4

10 EG3 18% 125 685 24

11 EGB 17% 78 449 30

12 EG0 17% 833 4 888 3

13 EDL 15% 104 686 27

14 EG1 15% 1 065 7 135 1

15 EBM 14% 692 5 019 6

16 EDB 13% 383 2 927 15

17 EGT 13% 125 959 25

18 EBB 12% 196 1 605 19

19 EDU 11% 560 4 972 9

20 LFR 11% 755 6 962 5

…

24 LFB 10% 843 8 739 2

Table 14 : Average of main ACCs affected by LCCs (rank by % of operations)

Low cost flights are still representing a low volume of traffic compared to the other types of traffic as representing a maximum of 35% of movements of a daily ACC volume.

ACCs where low cost flights exceed 20% of their volume are not generally the heaviest ACCs but still representing a significant part of traffic:

• EGC with 1347 movements;

• EGD with 1087 movements;

• EG2 with 2696 movements.

Similar to the analysis by movements; the most impacted ACCs are all located in UK.


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Figure 10 : Average ACCs impacted by LC flights (by share of LC traffic)

The most impacted ACCs by low cost flights in terms of movement and percentage of centre activities are mainly located in UK.

• EG0

• EG1

• EG2

• EGP

• EGC

• EGS

EBM (Belgium), EDU (Karlsruhe) and LFR (Reims) are also impacted by LCCs but to a lesser extent


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4.4 Sector analysis

4.4.1 Result by movements The following table describes the main sectors overflown by LCCs and the weight of these flights on the total daily sector volume.

Sector Id Average of daily LCC movements

Average of daily other movements

Average of daily total movements

% of LCC operations on the sector

EGPXDXS 212 466 678 31%

EG04LKS 188 511 700 27%

EBMAWSL 171 1 157 1 328 13%

EGDTSU 161 424 585 27%

EG03LKS 140 347 487 29%

EG28DTNU 135 317 451 30%

EGDTSL 133 332 465 29%

EG28DTNL 132 387 520 25%

EBMALUXM 131 824 955 14%

EG17LYDU 127 616 743 17%

Table 15 : Average of main sectors overflown by LCCs

8 of the top 10 sectors the most overflown by LCCs are located in UK and 2 in Belgium.

The sector EGPXDXS which handled in average the largest number of daily LC flights is also the sector of the top 10 with the largest share of LC operations.

It is worthwhile to note that according to the PRR6 [5], 4 sectors listed above have been identified as most penalising En Route locations for the year 2002. These sectors are:

• EBMAWSL (Maastricht) ;

• EBMALUXM (Maastricht) ;

• EG28DTNU (London) ;

• EG28DTNL (London).


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LCC m ovem ents O ther m ovem ents share of LC traffic

Figure 11 : Average of main sectors impacted by LCC movements

4.4.1.1 Results by percentage of LCC operations The following table presents the list of sectors classified by share of LC flights controlled.

Rank

(out of 514) Sector Id % of LCC

operations Average of daily LCC

movements Average of daily total

movements Rank by LCC

operations

1 LHDTOP 50% 1 1 534 2 LHDX 50% 1 1 534 3 EG08STUL 49% 20 41 191 4 EGPXANTL 48% 79 162 38 5 EGPXTLAU 38% 45 119 81 6 EGPXGWYL 38% 96 253 27 7 EGCCIOM 37% 25 67 164 8 EGPXTLAL 37% 124 336 12 9 EG18SFDL 36% 22 60 180

10 EGCCFIC 36% 95 267 28 …

14 EGPXDXS 31% 212 678 1 …

33 EG04LKS 27% 188 700 2 140 EBMAWSL 13% 171 1 328 3

Table 16 : Average of main sectors affected by LCCs (rank by % of operations)


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Again, this table stresses out the impact of LC flights on the UK sectors since if we exclude the first two sectors which handled only 1 LC flight, all the remaining sectors of the ranking are located in UK.

Thus for some sectors, the LC flights represent nearly half of their traffic. However, only one sector of the top 10, EGPXTLAL, handled more than 100 flights a day.

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Figure 12 : Average sectors the most impacted by LCCs operations by LC share

The sector analysis deepened the ACCs analysis and strengthened the fact that the portion of airspace the most overflown by LCCs are concentrated over UK. Thus, the above section pointed out that the sectors the most impacted in terms of movements and in term of percentage of low cost operations are mainly located over UK.


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5 Synthesis The LCC traffic patterns and their impact on the European ATM can be summarised by the following four main features:

• the massive dominance of a single type of aircraft (the B737 family represents three quarters of the LCC fleet) implies a higher concentration of RFL than for the rest of the traffic, and that “vertical preference bias” means that the LCC impact on certain airspace strata is more than proportional to LCC traffic growth; future studies should monitor carefully that factor when assessing the significance of LCC growth for ATM, as raw relative weights tell only part of the story.

• in the horizontal plane, LCC traffic is less concentrated; however, the development of significant LCC “hubs”14 at some airports has the same kind of impact on large TMAs encompassing those airports and on surrounding en route airspace; so the main challenge in terms of ATM adaptation to LCC traffic patterns will be over the same metropolitan areas of Northern Europe where traditional carriers and charter operators already flock together; in that respect, the LCC phenomenon only means “more of the same” from the standpoint of ATM capacity planning.

• based on LCC traffic patterns, the European airspace can presently be divided into two types of areas, “LCC originators” (mostly the UK and Ireland, and to a lesser degree the Netherlands and Germany) and “LCC receivers” (mostly Spain, Italy and France and to a lesser degree Portugal); this division also reflects the degree of maturity of the LCC market in individual countries and the on-going development differential of LCC with respect to classical carrier should progressively blur this North-South divide of traffic demand in the coming years.

• the structure of LCC traffic can be seen as the superposition of 3 traffic patterns, each with a distinctive position in the marketplace: 1°) a widely scattered North-South traffic between northern metropolises and provincial areas in France, Spain and Italy, which can be seen as occupying mostly a niche market in leisure travel which was not addressed by charter operators 2°) a more concentrated North-South traffic (from London to Roma or Palma, for example) that probably competes with both charter operators and also with scheduled airlines 3°) a short haul national or bilateral traffic developing in the most mature markets (UK, Ireland) in competition with other scheduled airlines.

14 In this sentence, the notion of “LCC hubs” corresponds to an Operation Platform serving as a focal point for traffic fanning in and out, but without the additional connotation of tightly synchronised rendezvous between arriving and departing flights, as implied at hubs operated by major airlines (e.g. AF at CDG, etc.)


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6 Conclusion Since 1997 and the deregulation of the European airspace, the growth of low cost carriers has been accelerating. Today, low cost carriers are representing more than 7% of the total European traffic in the ECAC area and they are expected to reach 12-15% of the traffic by 2010 according to ATAG15.

The study characterised the traffic patterns of these new actors and compared them with the rest of traffic. The main findings are the following:

• In general, there are no significant differences between low cost flights and the other flight patterns.

- Low cost operators are operating medium haul aircraft on intra European liaisons with average flight times inferior to 2 hours and an average distance of 400 Nm. These figures are exactly the same in average for the other types of traffic.

- Low cost carriers are also requesting the same FLs as the other operators with a high concentration on FL 320 (optimum FL) and FL 230 (FL in lower airspace to avoid regulations).

- Even if low cost airlines are serving more point to point liaisons, their main flows are concentrated on heavy airways adding capacity issues on already busy airspace areas, especially around the London TMA and over Maastricht and Reims ACCs.

• However, the departure and arrival flows are significantly different from the rest of the traffic, as LCCs have decided to develop their operations at secondary airports. The impact of the transition routes between those secondary airports and standard en-route airways - which may not be the same as for the main airports located in the same TMA - is a significant issue which has not been strictly addressed in this document and deserves further investigation. Indeed, this may add capacity constraints by increasing TMA flow management and co-ordination problems bearing on the controller’s workload.

The development of LCC traffic, which is not today a mature market will probably create new point-to-point liaisons extending into Central and Eastern European countries such as Austria, the Czech Republic or Baltic States. Yet, the main part of that LCC traffic will certainly consist of links between uncongested secondary airports located within large metropolitan areas such as London, Dublin, Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, Rome or Madrid, thus increasing the pressure of traffic demand on both the corresponding main TMAs and the adjacent en route airspace.

Going beyond the empirical statistical analysis conducted in this study would require an assessment of the overall market trends, combined with an analysis of LCC-specific development drivers for each of the 3 superposed patterns of LCC traffic that we identified in our summary. Thence, by investigating the dynamics of the 3 ways competition for intra-European air travel market between LCC flights, traditional scheduled flights and chartered flights, it should be possible to develop an accurate predictive model of LCC traffic patterns for the medium term (3-5 years).

15 The Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) is a coalition of organisations from throughout the air transport industry


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Abbreviations ACC Area Control Centre

ADEP Airport of DEParture

ADES Airport of DEStination

ALL-FT IFPS ALL-FlighT file

AO Aircraft Operator

ATC Air Traffic Control

ATFM Air Traffic Flow Management

ATM Air Traffic Management

ATS Air Traffic Service

ATSU Air Traffic Service Unit

CFMU Central Flow Management Unit

ECAC European Civil Aviation Conference

EOBT Estimated Off Block Time

ETFMS Enhanced Tactical Flow Management System

FL Flight Level

FP Flight Plan

FPL Filed flight Plan

FTFM Filed Tactical Flight Model

ICAO International Civil Aviation Authority

IFPS Integrated initial Flight plan Processing System

ISAAC Support tool for the analysis of discrepancies in flight profiles

LC Low Cost

LCC Low Cost Carrier

MVT Movement

NM Nautical Miles

RFL Requested Flight Level

RPL Repetitive flight PLan


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References

[1] Eurocontrol/STATFOR/Doc43 – The recent evolution of low cost airlines market share – 01/10/03

[2] Multi-Airport Systems in the Era of No-Frills Airlines – Massachusetts Institute of Technology

[3] Les compagnies “bas coûts” – Stratégie de niche ou avenir du transport aérien ? – Nathalie LENOIR – Laboratoire d’économie et d’économétrie de l’Aérien

[4] The role and impact of low cost carriers – MIT Global Airline Industry Program – Eclat Consulting March 26, 2002

[5] Performance Review Report – PR6 – Eurocontrol – July 2003


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ANNEX 1 ICAO CODE OF SELECTED LOW COST CARRIERS

LCCs ICAO code LCCs name

REA Aer Arann

BER Air Berlin GmbH & Co. Luftverkehrs KG

AZI Azzurra Air

DEB Debonair

EZY Easyjet

BEE FlyBe

KFK German Wings

DMI Germania Express

GOE Go Fly Ltd.

HLX Hapag Loyd Express

MPH Martinair

ISS Meridiana

RYR Ryanair

SBE Sabre Airways Ltd

SKK Sky Europe

VEX Virgin Express (Belgique)

VEI Virgin Express (Ireland) Ltd.

VRE Volare.com


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ANNEX 2 MAIN AIRPORT AND CITY PAIRS

The following tables present the main airport and city pairs which were flied on 19th September 2003.

Main airport-pairs

Rank Liaisons (both ways) between Number of movements on the liaison

% of the total traffic on the liaison

1 Madrid Barajas Barcelona 154 0.5% 2 Milano Linate Roma Fiumicino 94 0.3% 3 Palma de Mallorca Barcelona 75 0.3% 4 Paris Orly Toulouse 71 0.2% 5 Paris Charles De Gaulle London Heathrow 63 0.2% 6 Berlin Tegel Munich 58 0.2% 7 Berlin Tegel Köln/Bonn 57 0.2% 8 Bergen Oslo Gardermoen 56 0.2% 9 Catania Roma Fiumicino 54 0.2% 9 Trondheim Oslo Gardermoen 54 0.2%

Main City-pairs

Rank Liaisons (both ways) between Number of total

movements on the liaison

% of the total traffic on the liaison

1 Milano Roma 158 0.5% 2 Madrid Barcelona 154 0.5% 3 Paris London 122 0.4% 4 London Edinburgh 115 0.4% 5 London Dublin 112 0.4% 6 Glasgow London 109 0.4% 7 London Amsterdam 103 0.4% 8 Paris Toulouse 100 0.3% 9 Köln/Bonn Munich 99 0.3%

10 Berlin Köln/Bonn 97 0.3%


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ANNEX 3 STATISTICAL PROCESSING OF THE DATA

A) High level statistics • Percentage of low cost flights in the core area The average low cost traffic was calculated over the five selected days. The evolution was measured over one year by comparing figures from 14th October 2002 and 19th September 2003. This statistics highlighted the increasing share of low cost flights in the ECAC area.

• Distribution of low cost movements by low cost carriers Provided that there is an important turn over among low cost carriers, it was worthwhile to have a look to the percentage of low cost movements per low cost carrier over the first (the 14th October 2002) and the last (19th September 2003) selected days of the sample in order to identify the major actors of the low cost market, their respective weight and the evolutions of their market shares in a year.

• LCC Network To get an overall picture of the area impacted by low cost flights, a network map was produced thanks to the ISAAC GEO tool. To complete the analysis, the average of the total operations (departure or arrival) was calculated for the main countries impacted by LCCs.

• Identification of the main airports operating low cost flights In order to identify the main airports handling low cost flights, the average total number of low cost operations per day was calculated for each airport over the five selected days, thus allowing to determine their share among all low cost operations and the weight of these operations on the total airport activity.

• Main airport and city-pairs impacted by LCCs In order to assess the weight of the main airport-pairs and city-pairs operated by LCCs, the average LC movements on each airport and city pairs was calculated as well as their percentage on the total LC traffic. The share of low cost operations on each main airport and city-pairs was also computed. As only minor differences between the 5 selected traffic days were observed, only the results of the last traffic day have been presented.

• Length and time distribution of low cost flights The length was calculated by adding point-to-point distances from ADEP to ADES on the basis of the geographical point information provided in the All-FT FP.

The duration of FP was calculated on the basis of ADEP and ADES time estimates found in the All-FT file.

The average length and time distribution of low cost flights was compared with the average length and time distribution of all the other flights to identify any differences on the two types of traffic. In addition, to assess if low cost traffic is concentrating on the same peak time windows as the other types of traffic and thus adding some issues in terms of capacity, we looked at the average departure time distribution.


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B) Technical statistics • Aircraft types In order to characterise the LCCs flight patterns, it was interesting to analyse the average distribution of the aircraft types used by LCCs. This statistics should be correlated to the network, flight time and length analysis.

• Flight level analysis In order to identify the most requested Flight Levels of low cost flights and compare them to the most requested Flight Levels for all the other flights, 2 types of statistics were produced:

- Distribution of the RFL according to the flight distance;

- Weight of each RFL for most representing flights.

This comparison aimed at analysing if LCCs are requesting the same FLs as the other traffic and thus impacting on the capacity of the ATM network.

• Sector analysis For ACC and sector analysis, only the flight profiles superior to FL 210 were analysed as we only had the CFMU sectors description starting from this flight level (data effective on 05/09/2002).

Two types of analysis were conducted. The first one concentrated on the identification of the ACCs and sectors the most overflown by LCCs in terms of movements. The second analysis concentrated on the identification of the ACCs and sectors for which LCCs flights represented the most important share of their traffic.

Study of Low Cost Traffic Patterns - Eurocontrol

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