Airlines traditionally use January results time as an occasion to publicise any plans which might tantalise investors. This year the low-cost brigade is focusing those growth ambitions on Germany.
And no surprise. At present low-cost carriers have only a 25% share of Germany's short-haul market. Given that the sector's share in similar European markets such as Britain, Spain and Italy is around 50% this means that the likes of easyJet and Ryanair can smell revenue.
This is against the backdrop of Lufthansa's German short-haul business increasingly going through Eurowings (formerly Germanwings) just as IAG's short-haul German traffic sits with Air Berlin.
Lufthansa, in common with Europe's other large legacy carriers, has a high cost base which it must lower to be sustainable and able to offer competitive fares. Despite protracted conflicts with its unions Lufthansa is slowly lowering its labour cost base by recruiting new staff on less favourable wages and more flexible contracts. The German carrier is not resolving its cost base issues as quickly as IAG managed to do but both know that even once issues are sorted, their cost base will still be higher than the easyJets of this world. It's easier for a new business to create a low cost base than for an older one to do so by restructuring.
It's not just the German carriers, easyJet and Ryanair looking to grow — the latter aiming for a 15-20% market share. IAG's Vueling, Air France-KLM's Transavia, Wizz Air and Iceland's Wow Air are also among those expanding in Germany.
As a consequence of Air Berlin cutting some services in an attempt to improve profitability and Lufthansa switching services to Eurowings, German airports are trying to lure low-cost airlines. They are offering carriers attractive deals to ensure enough passenger footfall to satisfy retail tenants.
However, an airport offering deals and an airport offering slots at times attractive to business travellers are two different things and the new route schedules might not be suitable for business passengers, although they will undoubtedly add capacity.
Another factor to watch is the role of long-haul services in the fight for short-haul traffic market share. There are constant rumours about Ryanair and easyJet seeking a long-haul partner so that their passengers can seamlessly interline as do those on Air Berlin as part of oneworld and Vueling in the IAG group. (Eurowings is not a member of Star Alliance but has some bilateral codeshares with some members.)
In the past long-haul routes desperately needed feeder services which many of these short-haul services could provide. But in these days of online booking systems which can handle bookings on different carriers, albeit in two different sectors, that may be receding in importance.
But the European factor isn't. easyJet has satellite operations on the Continent but its headquarters remain in the UK. Can a 'no' vote winning the UK's European referendum put the competitive advantage back to Ryanair and the Continental low costs?
Whatever carriers dominate the short-haul market, the good news for corporate travel buyers is that the competition will be fierce. So as the number of new carriers, new routes and capacity in Germany is set to rise, the fares on short-haul routes look ready to fall.