Alison Chambers of Emerald Media reports
For the three daily newspapers produced at ERA see http://www.eraa.orghttp://www.emerald.co.uk
The 24th annual meeting of the European Regions Airline Association was staged in Vienna this week. As always, the organisation of the event was impeccable, attracting some 500 delegates, but only 41 of the ERA”s 65 airline presidents travelled to Austria. Two new initiatives were announced ” the launch of the ERA Academy, a new training initiative to offer internet-based aviation training to airlines, airports, manufacturers and regulators in technical, safety, regulatory and operational areas and ERA”s newly published ”A Vision for Europe.” Prepared in advance of the first meeting of the European Parliament and just following the enlargement of the EU, in it the Association calls for a new framework to be introduced to ensure that intra-European air transport is allowed to grow and not be hampered by regulators.
While ERA has welcomed several new airlines to the Association over the past 12 months ” such as Club Air of Italy; Adria, Carpatair, low cost Helvetic Airlines of Greece; Air Southwest, UK and Air Wales, it has also seen the departure of a considerable number (several owing to bankruptcy). Coupled to this, there are now only four regional aircraft manufacturers producing aircraft ” ATR, Bombardier, Embraer and since the beginning of this year, AvCraft, with the 328Jet. It is a fact of life that consolidation among suppliers and airlines is reducing ERA”s membership and as the association prepares to mark its 25th anniversary, a big membership drive, especially among airlines and airlines, is needed, observers here noted.
Saab Aircraft for example has several airlines who do not belong to ERA ” new Swiss airlines Baboo and Darwin and established players such as Loganair, Aurigny and Scot Airways. ERA”s airport members have also dropped as airports get increasingly revved up about the high volumes of passengers they can attract from the growing number of low cost carriers (LCCs) and their B737/Airbus A320 operations. They are prepared to offer sweetheart deals to get the LCCs in. Eastern Airways CEO Richard Lake complains that he can”t get the slots he wants with his small Jetstreams at big hub airports at Manchester Airport and this is a concern of many ERA member airlines. More small airlines coming into the Association would help with such issues. During its press conference, Salzburg Airport highlighted it was welcoming more LCCs, including Thomsonfly and Hapag Lloyd Express, which will help take its annual passenger numbers to 1.8 m in 2005. Bombardier CRJ200 operator Styrian Spirit is also launching Paris and Amsterdam to Salzburg Airport, they noted, in a code-share with Air France and KLM respectively. It will dedicate its fourth CRJ, arriving next month to the route, flying in the colours ”Salzburg Spirit.”
Moritz Suter, the founding father of ERA was not in Vienna, but his achievements in regional aviation were acclaimed by two of the ERA award winners at Thursday night”s black tie awards dinner. Richard Gooding of London City, accepting the prestigious Palme d”Or Award for long sustained quality at an airport, attributed the award to him for ”having the vision” to see the potential of the Docklands airport. Without Moritz, LCY could easily have been a housing estate, he has often said. The airport will handle 1.4m passengers this year and next year will welcome the opening of its dedicated DLR station, offering a 50 step, undercover walk to the terminal.
Antonis Simigdalas, who starts his three-year presidency of the ERA, thanked the airline”s employees, but also previous ERA presidents who have shaped the industry ” Olaf Dlugi (formerly Augsburg), Joao Ribeiro da Fonseca (still at Portugalia), Xavier Leclerqc (former Brit Air), Fritz Feitl (former Tyrolean) and Moritz (Crossair of course) ” as he accepted this years Gold award on behalf of Aegean Airlines where he is coo. It was, he said, the ”Year of the Greeks,” following their win at Euro 2004 and being host to the summer Olympics. Richard Lake, CEO of Eastern, collected Silver for the second consecutive year and Padraig O”Ceidigh from Aer Arann collected bronze. All winners this year are independently owned and each drew praise from the voting European journalists for their business stability, financial performance and strength in their respective markets.
Airport of the Year was BAA”s Southampton Airport and the runners up were also from UK airports, Birmingham and London City. Air Nostrum, a four-time ERA airline winner, collected ERA”s Palme d”Or Airline Award. Tracey Boles from the UK”s The Business won the Journalist of the Year Award.
There was one just order announcement at ERA, from Embraer, firming Air Canada”s plans to add 45 Embraer 190s, plus options of 45 more to its fleet. The order came just one day after Bombardier announced the sale of 90 aircraft (orders and options for CRJ700 and CRJ200s). The Canadian manufacturer gave an update on the its new C Series 110-135 family of jets and said that an advisory council of majors and leading regional meets every two months to further define the programme.
Saab Aircraft Leasing announced that it was leasing a Saab 2000 to Eastern Airways and the aircraft would be the first to go on to the UK register from October. The possibility of more Saab 2000s is being studied by the airline as it starts a review of replacing its 24-strong Jetstream 31 and 32s, which come off lease in three years time. CEO Richard Lake says he is also very impressed with the AvCraft 328Jet. Regional of France and Portugalia are also studying the Embraer 170/190 family. Portugalia has to determine its future partners, however, first, says President Joao Ribeiro da Fonseca, following TAP Air Portugal”s decision to join Star Alliance. One possibility for the carrier is a tie up with Air France”s SkyTeam. In Scandinavia, Jet1 becomes the first regional member of Star Alliance from October.
With the demise of the Fairchild 738 and 938 programmes and BAE disclosing that there are very few Avro RJs now coming on to the market, with many operators extending their leases, Rekkof”s Jaap Rosen Jacobsen said that he has strong prospects that he hopes can soon be translated into orders that would enable him to finally restart the Fokker 100 programme. Among them are KLM Cityhopper and VLM, the airline he also owns. He is also starting to see interest among US airlines for the first time. Rekkof has 500 employees ready to start on re-launching the programme in the Netherlands, and he will need 350 initially. ”We are ready to go once we have commitments,” he says.
Boeing Aircraft, present with a sizeable contingent this year, highlighted that the B717 will mark five years in service on 12 October with the fleet now nearing one m flight hours. Pat McKenna, VP and General Manager 717 Program acknowledged interest from half a dozen customers that could bring in ”25 to 30 sales by year end.” Interestingly, there was no participation from Airbus.
Several airlines are benefiting from the withdrawal of mainline carriers on shorter routes. Cimber Air, the industry”s longest serving regional, is taking over routes from SAS Denmark from Copenhagen to Dresden, Cologne, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Szczecin (Poland); Kleipeda (Palanga) in Lithuania, Lyon and Vastera, Sweden using two former Maersk Air CRJ200s. In its own right, Cimber will start ATR42/72 flights from Billund to Milan, Munich, Brussels, Stockholm Arlanda and Oslo. KLM Cityhopper which is in the final throes of putting together KLM Cityhopper and KLM UK has benefited with the Air France/KLM ties with two new routes from Amsterdam to Marseilles and Rotterdam to Paris CDG. ”There has been nothing negative so far from the two carriers coming together for us,” says president Elfrieke van Galen, noting the airlines are sharing best practices and will also see benefits with corporate purchasing such as fuel. Elfrieke, a popular female CEO at ERA, is to play a closer in the Association as one of two newly appointed Vice Presidents. The other is Per Arne Watle from Wideroe. She initiated an evaluation form to get member feedback on the annual meeting for the first time and agrees that the Association needs to build its airline members and offer some inducements in such regard.
According to OAG Data, a total 375 airports in Europe are served solely by regional aircraft and 330 of them by member airlines. These airlines serve 1,000 city pairs and operate an average route distance of 525 kms with an average aircraft capacity of 68 seats. The top 10 cities of Brussels, D”sseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Zurich are served by 16 ERA airlines. Collectively, ERA airlines carried 78.7m passengers in 2003 using 1,084 aircraft ” 574 jets and 509 turboprops, according to ERA. Three out of four airlines are showing traffic growth and in the first half of the year, members reported an average 4.3% increase in passengers and a 4.4% increase in pkm growth.