The challenge

Edinburgh Airport’s Aviation Team is at the heart of the airport’s growth strategy, responsible for developing new and existing route opportunities that strengthen Scotland’s global connectivity.  As part of their strategy, the team needs to build detailed and accurate business cases to support network expansion, often including long-haul and transatlantic services.

Forecasting is also particularly important in Edinburgh Airport’s approach to long-haul route development. Accurate data allows the team to simulate passenger flows and assess connectivity through various global hubs. These insights are then used to build projections of route performance, which are shared with airlines as part of their network evaluation process.

To achieve their strategic development and forecasting goals, the team requires fast, accurate, and flexible schedule data that can be applied to internal forecasting models and shared with airline partners. The data must be reliable, current, and accessible in a versatile format suitable for a range of audiences. For wider adoption across the business, the platform also needed to be intuitive, user-friendly, and sophisticated enough for any team member to use confidently.

The solution

After many years of success using Schedules Analyser, Edinburgh Airport became a Development Partner with OAG for the New Schedules Analyser platform. This builds on their long-standing reliance on OAG data to drive growth, while also giving them early access to next-generation tools and the opportunity to help shape the platform’s development.

Powered by METIS, OAG’s cloud platform, New Schedules Analyser provides the comprehensive and customizable Capacity Report, offering powerful insights into the global aviation landscape via a sleek and accessible design. Versatile and flexible, New Schedules Analyser allows for additional chart types, including pie charts, line charts, bar charts, and multi-line bar charts, enabling teams to access downloadable, valuable insights in the format that they need. 

Used daily across Edinburgh Airport’s Route Development and Operational Planning teams, Classic Schedules Analyser delivers the data needed to develop accurate and credible business cases for new services, monitor airline performance, and identify market shifts early.

The route development team uses Schedules Analyser to extract data on on-sale capacity, aircraft types, and frequencies, and to monitor how schedules evolve week by week. The Capacity Report is the most frequently used feature, providing insight into changes in fleet deployment or flight frequency that may signal route expansion or reduction. This helps the team quickly identify opportunities and assess how Edinburgh fits into an airline’s broader network strategy.

A core feature used is the Snapshot function, which allows teams to compare what was on sale at different points in time. Snapshots are especially useful for spotting trends in airline scheduling behaviour, including how far in advance certain carriers load or adjust their schedules. These patterns are factored into Edinburgh Airport’s internal forecasting and budget planning processes, helping to inform when and how to engage airline partners.

The team also integrates Schedules data into dashboards to automate the tracking and analysis of key routes. Once downloaded, the data can be manipulated easily to fit into Edinburgh Airport’s internal reporting formats. Thanks to its simplicity of use, Analyser has been successfully rolled out across departments.

The results

Since embedding Schedules Analyser into its forecasting processes, Edinburgh Airport has improved forecasting accuracy and operational efficiency, particularly for long-haul route launches. Recent transatlantic services closely matched pre-launch forecasts, reinforcing Edinburgh Airport’s credibility with airline partners. Building on this success, its transatlantic network has grown rapidly, with 2025 seats on sale up 122% vs. 2019 and more than 1 million two-way direct seats now offered annually to the USA and Canada.

The ability to access and analyse current schedule data daily has significantly improved Edinburgh Airport’s workflow. By removing the need to manually collect data from multiple sources, the team can dedicate more time to analysis and insight generation. This shift has led to faster turnaround times for business cases and better-informed decision-making across the team.

Internally, Edinburgh Airport uses Schedules Analyser to support both strategic planning and day-to-day monitoring. The team uses it weekly to review changes in available capacity and airline behaviour, and daily to support business case development, meeting preparation, and internal reporting.

These operational improvements have underpinned Edinburgh Airport’s impressive performance in recent years. The airport is now one of the fastest-growing in the UK, with international capacity in 2025 up 35% versus 2019 - the largest increase of any UK airport with more than one million annual passengers. Specific long-haul services have also flourished. One such route, launched in 2023 as a limited summer operation, has rapidly expanded in just two years to cover most of the summer season, with seats on the route rising by 119% since launch.

Schedules Data has become an essential part of Edinburgh Airport’s route development toolkit. Every new route proposal includes data from Schedules Analyser as part of the broader business case. This supports Edinburgh Airport’s efforts to present grounded, data-led proposals that align with each airline’s strategic goals.

With Analyser+ in place, Edinburgh Airport is well positioned to identify new opportunities, support airline decision-making, and continue growing Edinburgh’s role as a key international hub.