EUROPE. Intra-European aircraft seat capacity is up +6% for 2018 against last year, according to newly-released statistics. The data has been revealed by ForwardKeys, which predicts future travel patterns by analysing 17 million booking transactions a day.
The growth has been led by the Central/Eastern Europe region (+12.7%), followed by Southern Europe (+8.8%), Western Europe (+5.4%) and Northern Europe (+3%).
ForwardKeys attributed the increases to specific events such as the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, and other long-term factors including the growing popularity of travel, increasing pressure on the major airports and the success of low-cost airlines.
The countries reporting the highest increases in Europe were in the Central/Eastern region. Russia led the way, followed by Georgia (+23%), Ukraine (+18%), Poland (+17%) and Latvia (+16%). Meanwhile, in Southern Europe, Turkey and Greece both bounced back with significant growth.
Regional airports Aarhus (+100%), Bordeaux (+24%), Ufa (+185%) and Antalya (+65%) were the top performers within their respective sub-regions in terms of intra-European capacity.
ForwardKeys has also reported that seat capacity growth to long-haul destinations from Europe is up by +9.1%, although the seat volume is substantially less than that on intra-regional flights.
It also noted that the capacity was growing fastest at smaller European airports, with the ten largest European airports showing slower growth.
Commenting on the figures, ForwardKeys CEO and co-founder, Olivier Jager, said: “Low-cost travel is constantly increasing its market share and driving a lot of regional and trans-Atlantic expansion, but demand is still going to outstrip capacity.
“The regional expansion trend seems irresistible and many European destinations are already facing the problems of ‘overtourism’, as seen in Barcelona and Dubrovnik.
“There needs to be combined efforts and vision from airports, airlines and destinations simultaneously to capitalise on the economic benefits and manage the growth in a sustainable way.”
ForwardKeys also highlighted figures from its headquarters city, Valencia, showing residents’ flight searches for destinations not yet served. Heading the list are Athens, Florence, Kiev and Stockholm.
Jager concluded: “We have observed thousands of searches for each of these destinations this year. That shows how much people want to depart from their local airport and they are constantly seeking new destinations. It’s both a challenge and business opportunity that needs to be met.”
