ON TOUR: Last week the annual ”Routes” airline and airports gathering took place in Copenhagen. Our roving reporter Alison Chambers took off to the Danish capital. Here are her words
”It is easy to see why ”Routes” has become the world”s leading airport and airline networking event. A record 1,700 delegates ” including 280 airlines and 420-plus airports ” attended the 11th annual meeting at the Bella Centre, Copenhagen.
Routes organisers had pre-scheduled 22,000 meetings prior to the two-day event, but by the close of Tuesday, the number of actual meetings was pushing 40,000. Some 3,000 of them were between airlines, highlighting a trend that interlining, or at least the wish for airline route planners to collaborate, is back in vogue again.
Routes is slick and well organised. It is also well timed, just one month ahead of the winter IATA Slot Conference. Airports have 20 minutes” pre-arranged one on one ”slots” with airline representatives, with a five minute break in between. On site meetings are quickly fixed too, the whole process supervised by a 50-strong Routes team, who even provide coaching on the Sunday before the event, mainly for first time airports looking for tips on presentation.
And it doesn”t stop there. Complementing the mainstay of route forecast specialists, who were there in force to crunch numbers; aircraft manufacturer Embraer brought a six strong team to Routes to help its jet customers calculate operating costs on site - should they like the sound of a specific airport proposal.
”The airline/airport relationship has become the driving force of route development,” says Routes managing director Mike Howarth, who acknowledges his team has been beset with offers from airports to host these get togethers. The first Routes Africa for example was announced at Routes, reflecting the high growth this region is experiencing. It will take place in Casablanca, Morocco, during 5-6 March.
According to OAG, the number of flights to and from Africa saw a 7% increase in flights in September 2005, against September 2004. Routes 2004 was also the catalyst for the start of Qatar Airways flights from Doha to Nairobi, which commence on 15 November. Representatives from South Africa”s Kruger Mpumalanagea International Airport, 40 km from the Kruger National Park, are positioning to attract international charter airlines and at Routes the airport signed routes specialist ASM to help them in their goal to attract up to 100,000 international passengers a year.
The low cost airline sector was strongly represented and ELFAA held its annual general meeting during the event. (A press briefing scheduled for Tuesday morning, however, was cancelled, allegedly because its secretary general, its only full staff member, was ill. ELFAA too is a budget operation) According to OAG, the LCCs offered 40 million seats in September, 12% higher than in September 2004. The sector accounted for 285,000 flights that month, 19,000 more than September 2004. Ryanair, easyJet and bmi Baby were in demand, having stated they are looking for new, continental bases and there was a notable presence from Eastern European LCCs, including Wizz Air and SkyEurope, who have just announced plans to increase their fleets. flyglobespan and Jet2 (please see news stories above) were visible talking to continental airports.
The new airline hall, sponsored by OAG, played host to 17 companies, including the world”s first low cost cargo airline, Fresh Line, set to make its debut early in January from Frankfurt Hahn Airport, initially to Cairo and Amman with an Airbus A300B4. Martin Halstead, just 19 years old, and the boss of start-up Alpha One came to Routes with his chief pilot, initially apprehensive at how he would be received. His fears were unfounded. ”The airports we met were both interested and supportive,” he said. Halstead is bravely spearheading a return to domestic, scheduled ”commuter” flying, having sourced a Navajo Chieftain from Rangemile of Coventry, UK. Alpha One, which has just secured its AOC, plans to fly from Cambridge to Oxford and Bristol; Bristol-Liverpool and Oxford-Manchester. With Britain”s motorways heavily congested, he may, observers think, actually be on to a good thing and so far, Halstead has gathered a team of 23 (older) people to help him. At Routes he met with Exeter, Cardiff, Robin Hood Doncaster, Humberside and London Southend Airports, with whom he has arranged subsequent meetings. He has also been invited to attend the European Regions Airline Association”s annual event in Gothenburg this month. With interest in business aviation increasing, Routes also drew in Privatair, Netjets and Club328. The latter, with its smaller jets, met with several of the smaller French and Spanish airports, who have expressed an interest in regular business flights.
ACMI activity is another growing trend and it was big business at Routes. Regional airline specialist Denim Air, now newly out of scheduled services, was promoting its new ”ACMI Plus” offering for new start airlines, offering aircraft; flight crews; interlining; sales distribution and marketing support. First customer is new Italian regional Voli Regionali which started flying on Monday from its Vicenze Airport base to Rome Ciampino with a Denim Fokker 50. Highland Airways of Inverness, UK, in partnership with Aerocondor (ATA) of Portugal was offering Jetstream 31, Dornier 228 and ATR42 packages under its new ACMI Solutions banner and new company ACMI24 is a brokerage from Air Charter Connections in the UK. It sources and offers to the market available capacity on any commercial aircraft, working together with its airline partners. Well known industry face Mike Sessions is marketing this venture. A topic of conversation around the halls was Swiss International Air Lines” application last week for an air operator”s certificate (AOC). It is setting up a newly-registered company, to be known as Swiss European Air Lines that would be a wet-lease operation for Swiss. It has been moved to do this because of long-standing, so far unresolved labour issues with the pilots of its regional operation (the one time Crossair.) This pilot labour agreement expires at the end of this month. It was with some irony then that an Avro RJ100, proudly still displaying the colours of Crossair, flew into Copenhagen Airport on a scheduled flight ” just as Routes delegates started to arrive”.
Alison Chambers is an airline specialist and can be reached at [email protected]
www.routesonline.com