The changing shape of the UK airline market

Figures from the CAA paint an interesting picture about the changing shape of demand

The CAA has now published passenger figures to and from the UK for August. Some of the most interesting statistics are those for passenger numbers split by airport pair. What do they tell us about how demand has changed as a result of COVID-19?

The biggest markets from the UK last year

Here are the figures for international passenger numbers from the UK in August 2019. The red bars are long-haul markets and the blue ones are short-haul.

Source: CAA

It is striking how many of these markets are long-haul. In revenue terms, the dominance of long-haul would be much greater. Many of the short-haul markets are actually linking London to European hubs, which on the face of it represent short-haul travel. However, in reality a significant proportion of this traffic will actually be people making connections to long-haul services.

Also noteworthy is that the only non-London market in the top 20 comes in at number 19, Manchester to Palma. That demonstrates the dominance of London in the pre COVID aviation world.

Let us look at how things have changed today.

The biggest markets from the UK in August 2020

Here are the same figures for passenger numbers this year. Obviously the overall figures are well down, hence the different scale on this chart. But also very interesting is the complete change in which markets appear in the top 20. Normally, there would be very little variation from year to year in these rankings, but COVID-19 has had a huge impact

Source: CAA

The first thing to notice is that there are now only two long-haul markets which even make it into the top 20. Both of these are to Middle Eastern hubs.

European hubs also continued to feature in the top routes, with Amsterdam, Zurich, Frankfurt and Munich continuing to feature in both lists.

This August, Istanbul was apparently the place to be, coming in at number 1 (from Stansted) and 3 (from Heathrow) in the rankings. A market that didn’t even make it into the top 20 last year (Heathrow - Istanbul was number 26). As a general comment, Greece and Turkey were remarkably prominent in the top 20.

Last year’s number one, Heathrow - New York, came in this year at number 41, reflecting the complete collapse in transatlantic travel after the US closed its borders to European travellers.

Manchester now appears three times in the top 20. As an outbound leisure dominated market, it has held up better than the London market, which in normal times has much more business and inbound leisure demand.

What a difference a year makes.