Corporate Travel Analysis Reports For Europe/MEA

Air transport associations have sent an open letter to the European Council requesting the urgent need to resolve border control delays across Europe. The imposition of a new regulation on border control checks by the European Union (regulation 458/2017) has already caused chaos and significant delays to flights in Europe with the extra checks resulting on average in an extra 20 seconds processing time per passenger, meaning it can take an extra hour to process the passengers on a typical short-haul flight.

Europe's largest carrier Ryanair has revealed plans to expand its activities from its home airport in Dublin in winter 2017/2018 and summer 2018, but the airline is a long way from the small operator that first launched flights there over 30 years ago. The pre-low cost carrier launch of the Dublin - London Luton route back in 1986 ended the duopoly of Aer Lingus and British Airways and represented the first steps on a journey that saw it overtake Lufthansa Group as Europe's largest airline by passengers in 2016.

European low fare carrier easyJet is to introduce a new ancillary offering that will effectively allow passengers to check-in their hand baggage and avoid the need to transport bags through the airport. However, passengers at its largest airport, London Gatwick, will have to wait to take advantage of the concept.

The aviation landscape continues to change across the globe. We have seen the arrival of low-cost carriers, new hub operators in the Middle East, consolidation and the reinvention of the traditional legacy airlines, to name just a few of the recent developments, but one thing has remain constant, the undeniable potential to develop new air connectivity across the vast African continent.

There have been mixed views over the effectiveness of low-cost carriers (LCCs) in Africa over recent years especially as the most recognised operator fastjet has significantly down-sized its activities as it has translated from a UK-headquartered business into a true African airline. But the backers behind Nigeria's start-up airline jetWest believe they have the right ingredients to make the model work, first in Nigeria, then across west Africa and finally across Africa as a whole and overcome the regional connectivity issues that blight travel across the continent.

Fleet renewal projects at major operators across Europe mean that numerous BAe 146 and Avro RJ regional jetliners are now starting to come out of mainland European airline service, but manufacturer BAE Systems says these aircraft are steadily finding new operators, markets and applications providing important network connections.

Travel management companies have voiced their frustration and concern after reports have once again emerged that the UK's opposition Labour Party could vote against plans for a third runway at London Heathrow. A report in the Financial Times claims senior Labour figures say the party's leadership is 'almost certain' to block the long-awaited proposed expansion of Europe's largest international airport on environmental grounds.

The Russian government is once-again considering the removal of the current tax breaks it offers on imported commercial airliners as it seeks to promote and protect domestic aircraft production and assembly. Under current legislative arrangements, western-built aircraft carrying between 50 and 300 passengers and weighing between 20 and 90 tonnes, are exempt from import taxes.

For the capital city of Europe's largest national economy (and the World's fourth largest, by GDP) the commercial airports in Berlin have been criminally underused in the past.

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