QUESTION FOR THE WEEK: Which ten airlines have the largest presence in the North Atlantic market this summer based on schedule seat capacity?

10 June, 2019

In our new weekly series to break up those Monday morning office blues, The Blue Swan Daily will be testing your knowledge and insight into the aviation and travel industry. This is all just for fun, but who knows? We may be able to find a prize somewhere around CAPA HQ. This week's question is detailed below. The answers will be revealed and winners (if there are any correct entries) announced next week alongside our next question.


When we talk about the first to fly across the Atlantic in an aircraft most of us think of Charles Lindbergh, who at the age 25 in 1927, went from obscurity as a US Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame after he flew nonstop from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, New York, to Paris, France. But, while he made the first solo crossing, a decade earlier John Alcock and Arthur Brown successfully flew a modified First World War Vickers Vimy bomber from St John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland.

This week marks the 100th anniversary of that crossing, and the establishment of one of the most competitive, and in some cases most lucrative air markets of the modern era. Now, there are as many as 1393 flights a day between North America and Europe this year linking more than 130 destinations. Looking at OAG data, more than 50 airlines have flights across the North Atlantic during the current summer schedule.

Our QUESTION OF THE WEEK is…

Which ten airlines (please rank them in the correct order) have the largest presence in the North Atlantic market this summer based on schedule seat capacity?

JOIN IN THE FUN: Send your answers to: The Blue Swan Daily Content Team

We will be revealing the answers at the same time next week, when we will be setting another question.


Last week we asked…Seasonality is a big issue in the travel sector, but can you name the top ten countries with the largest seasonal shift in capacity between summer and winter flight schedules?

The answer was… Croatia, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gambia, Faroe Islands, Tunisia, Malta and Gibraltar.

Nine of these ten seasonal variations peak in the northern hemisphere summer schedules, with Gambia the only exception. Interestingly, among the world's largest aviation markets, seasonal shifts see seats per day up by a third in Spain and Italy and also by a quarter in the United Kingdom in the northern summer schedule.