e-tid - European airline traffic Feb10

European airline traffic Feb10

10 Mar 2010
AF-KLM, Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, bmi, Germanwings, Air Berlin, SAS, Aer Lingus, Norwegian and Finnair.
 

Air France-KLM carried 4.78m passengers last month, 2.2% fewer than in February 2009.

Traffic in revenue passenger kilometres fell by 0.6% on capacity in available seat kilometres down 5%, resulting in a 3.5 percentage point improvement in load factor to 77.7%.

Lufthansa Passenger Airlines, which includes the mainline plus Lufthansa Regional and Lufthansa Italia, saw February passenger numbers drop 7.2% year-on-year to 3.51m. Traffic declined by 4.8% but capacity was cut by just 3.5%, which meant load factor fell 0.9pp to 71.5%.

Lufthansa’s wholly owned SWISS subsidiary reported growth of 11.1% to 1m passengers, with traffic 8.4% ahead of February 2009. Capacity was lifted by 1.3%, boosting load factor by 5pp to 77.2%.

The Austrian Airlines Group, also owned by Lufthansa and comprising Austrian, Austrian arrows and Lauda Air, saw February passengers rise by 4% to 645.7k. Traffic increased by 1.7% on capacity down 3.1%, resulting in a 3.4pp improvement in loads to 72%.

bmi, taken over by Lufthansa last year, carried 444k passengers last month, with load factor averaging 62.2%. Year-on-year comparisons were not provided.

Germanwings, owned by Eurowings in which Lufthansa holds a 49% stake, reported growth of 1.1% to 436.6k February passengers. Load factor slipped 2pp to 72.7%.

Elsewhere, passenger numbers at Air Berlin were up 3.1% at 1.95m last month, but load factor fell 0.3pp to 70.6%, following a 3.5% increase in capacity.

The SAS Group – mainline Scandinavian, Wideroe and Blue1 – carried 1.84m February passengers, up 0.3% year-on-year, although traffic declined by 3.1%. Capacity was slashed by 10.2%, lifting load factor by 5pp to 66.9%.

Norwegian’s February passenger total of 834.9k was 25% higher than a year ago. Traffic jumped 28% and capacity 32%, depressing load factor by 2pp to 76%.

Aer Lingus reported a decline of 3.5% to 664k passengers last month. Traffic fell 10.9% and capacity 8.2%, which resulted in a 2.1pp drop in load factor to 69.9%.

Finally, the Finnair Group carried 493.6k scheduled passengers in February, up 0.8% year-on-year. Traffic grew by 1.5% on capacity down 4.4%, boosting load factor by 4.4pp to 76.1%.

See also:
European airline traffic Feb10 (04/03/2010)
Air Berlin ups NIKI stake (19/02/2010)
Norwegian adds more UK routes (17/02/2010)
AF-KLM sees signs of recovery (11/02/2010)
Lufthansa weighed down by Austrian and bmi (29/10/2009)