You might be forgiven for thinking that the networks of the three main airline groups in Europe — Air France KLM, IAG and Lufthansa Group - are pretty similar. Yet the group's statistics for 2015 show there are subtle differences between them, meaning there are different pressures and different prospects depending on the health of various regions of the world. The three are not directly comparable because they report their regions differently but the three are interesting in their own right.
The three charts below show the proportion of traffic to various regions by the three groups, in terms of revenue passenger kilometres.
For Air France KLM, North America and Asia Pacific are equal in terms of generating traffic. Short and medium haul traffic makes up a much smaller proportion than in the past, thanks to competition from low-cost carriers.
For IAG, America is the biggest destination in terms of revenue passenger kilometres, accounting for almost a half of all traffic. This is largely driven by British Airway's strength across the Atlantic to the east coast of the US and Iberia's strong links to South America.
For Lufthansa, traffic to North America is the largest part of the business, but with Europe closely behind at 32%. The Middle East and Africa, to which Germany has fewer colonial ties than the nations associated with the other groups, is significantly less important. Asia Pacific is far more important than for the other two groups.
