Budget airline capacity more than doubles in four years Low cost growth up 14%, world air transport just 2% Europe and the US neck-and-neck in low cost balance Asia soars, Europe strides and US stable China and India take a giant leap forward Capacity on low cost airlines has more than doubled in just four years, according to latest figures released from OAG. This month, budget airlines plan to operate more than 46 million seats on over 323,000 flights, compared with 22 million seats on 169,000 flights in September 2002. The volume of low cost flights worldwide is 14 per cent higher than a year ago, with 16 per cent more capacity. Around 14 per cent of all flights now are operated by low-cost carriers, accounting for 17 per cent of all seats on sale worldwide. Europe and the United States are both showing the balance of budget flights as 18 per cent, a figure which has been static in the US for the last 3 years. The figures are revealed in a special report conducted by OAG in advance of the Routes Development Forum in Dubai and the World Low Cost Airlines Congress in London later this month. OAG collates data from more than 1000 airlines, on a daily basis, and tracks around 28 million departures a year. Intra-regional growth figures show that the Asia Pacific low cost industry is outperforming the rest of the world by a significant margin. There are more than 17,000 additional no frills flights offering 2 million seats within the region this month than in September 2005, a rise of 63 per cent. China, which is very new to the budget airline phenomenon, is showing a rise of almost 2,000 more flights which represents a huge increase year on year of more than 4000 per cent. Europe as a whole continues its upward trend, with 15,000 more flights (up 18 per cent) year on year, with the European Union countries accounting for more than 11,000 of these new flights. The US domestic market, although by far the busiest in this sector, has shown a very slight drop of one per cent (1,800 fewer low cost flights) than in September 2005. Although comparatively small in actual numbers, the Middle East low cost sector is still booming, with a 77 per cent increase in flights within the region. “We can only speculate on the future impact China and India will have on the low cost sector,” says Duncan Alexander, managing director of Business Development at OAG. “From a tiny base of just 48 low cost flights within China this time last year, the jump to more than 2,000 is remarkable. Equally impressive is India’ fledgling market which has leapt from 600 flights and 28,000 seats in September 2004 to more than 12,000 flights and more than 1.1 million seats in just two years.”
Flights on Low Cost Carriers vs. Total on All Carriers
Seat Capacity on Low Cost Carriers vs. Total on All Carriers 
For further information please contact: Christopher Pickard at DBA
Tel 44 (0)207 930 8033 Email: chris@dbapr.co.uk
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