Corporate Travel Analysis Reports For Europe/MEA

It is a popular refrain that there has been no new runway added in the UK since WWII - although many unused and underused airports have been reactivated. Across the world, similar stories abound - it has taken Sydney nearly 50 years to decide to build a new airport - although major exceptions like China, the Gulf, Turkey and Mexico do exist.

According to local press reports, Icelandair Group's president and CEO Björgólfur Jóhannsson and WOW air CEO Skúli Mogensen agree that Keflavik International Airport should be privatised in order to keep up with growth in the region. Both carriers are expanding aggressively - increasingly in dangerously direct competition with each other - and are seeking to deploy more transatlantic services. The question is: is privatisation the panacea?

The Chief Executive of Hermes Airports, Eleni Kaloyirou said recently that the company "is convinced that Cyprus can have a greater share of the international tourism pie", and that this can be achieved "through collective effort and the right strategy". She added, "Our Company has been actively involved in the preparation of the National Tourism Strategy and is looking forward to its adoption and implementation".

In a world of globalisation national brands are increasingly crossing borders. Even in the highly regulated aviation business airline groupings have found ways around restrictive ownership and control limits to firmly plant their flags in other nations. In Europe, the open market has delivered open skies within the Continent and has allowed airlines to truly become pan-European operations.

LOT Polish Airlines believes its recent comprehensive business restructuring has delivered sufficient cost savings for it to be able to deploy its long-haul aircraft on routes outside of Poland. The Star Alliance member will initially fill a gap in the Hungarian market by launching flights from Budapest to Chicago and New York from summer 2018, but is understood to also be considering other markets outside of Poland for its Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet.

It can be really hard for a regional airport to secure new air services, especially when it is located in the backyard of the country's two largest hub airports. Well, that is exactly the case for Albrecht Dürer Airport in Nuremburg, Germany which is located right between Frankfurt and Munich. It is certainly the small fish in the pond, but its innovative Blue Ocean marketing campaign is helping to deliver new capital city and leisure destination connectivity and have seen it become recognised by Europe's airlines for its impactful message to the route development industry.

While we continue to have no idea how Brexit will impact the relationship between the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) states or how this will impact the aviation industry, a data study released this summer by aviation economic experts RDC has highlighted that the UK's value within the networks of the increasing low-cost carriers (LCCs) operating across the Continent is actually decreasing.

US major Delta Air Lines says that in cooperation with its transatlantic joint venture partner Air France, it will launch the first nonstop flights between Indianapolis and Europe with the introduction of flights to its European hub at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport beginning 24-May-2018. The new daily service will be flown by a Boeing 767-300ER equipped with 25 fully lie-flat seats in Delta One, 29 seats in Delta Comfort+ and 171 seats in the Main Cabin.

While there are yet few concrete example of President Trump's desire to increase the number of private sector infrastructure projects in the transport sector - and especially in the case of airports - the public and private sectors are combining in a way that the United States of America has not previously witnessed by negotiating public-private-partnerships (PPPs) to deliver new airport terminals.

Traffic data for the first six months of 2017 shows that the United Kingdom remains the largest market for passengers in and out of Poland and accounts for almost one in three European travellers departing or arriving at the Eastern European country's airports. This has been mainly driven by the growth of Low Cost Carriers (LCC) point-to-point connections between the two countries that has developed both strong outbound and inbound traffic flows.