TIGER AIRWAYS TO RESUME BANGALORE AND ADD CEBU ROUTE
Although the ongoing grounding of its Australian division is dominating the news, Tiger Airways has confirmed plans to expand its network from its main base in Singapore. The low-cost carrier is to reintroduce flights to the Indian city of Bangalore this winter, offering a four times weekly service on the international route as well as adding links to Cebu in the Philippines. Tiger Airways suspended its flights between Singapore and Bangalore in October 2010, but still accounts for around a 16 per cent share of the 183,000 O&D passengers that travelled on the route in the past year. It will compete directly with Singapore Airlines, SilkAir and Air India on the route and based on historic information is expected to offer average fares between 30 and 50 per cent cheaper than its rivals. The Singapore – Cebu route will be launched on September 7 and operated four times weekly. An estimated 116,000 O&D passengers travelled on the route in the past year, up 63.9 per cent on the previous 12 month period. Cebu Pacific Airways currently dominates the market (56 per cent) but has seen its share decline by around 13 per cent in the past year as Air Philippines has entered the market. It has carved out a 23 per cent share of the market with its five times weekly flights, while SilkAir now has an 18 per cent share (down from 28 per cent last year). The arrival of Air Philippines has seen average one-way fares fall from $216 to $188 and the addition of Tiger Airways’ four times weekly service will certainly impact yields still further.
LUFTHANSA PLANS DAILY UPGRADE FOR SOUTH KOREAN ROUTES
German national carrier Lufthansa is set to introduce a daily link on its flights from Munich to Seoul Incheon and Busan from the 2012 Northern Summer schedules, subject to Government approval. The airline currently offers a six times weekly service on the route using an Airbus A340-600. The additional rotation is due to be introduced from March 25, 2012 when the route is scheduled to be operated by a smaller A340-300. An estimated 1.2 million O&D passengers travelled between Germany and South Korea in the past year, with around 281,000 beginning or ending their journey at Munich, just below a quarter of the total. According to the Munich data, around 44,000 passengers flew to or from Seoul Incheon, with 10,000 flying to or from Busan. Alongside the Munich link, Lufthansa also offers a daily link between Frankfurt and Seoul Incheon, while Korean Air and Asiana Airlines also offer daily schedules on the route.
JETSTAR ASIA TO INAUGURATE NINGBO SERVICE
The Asian division of Australian low-cost carrier Jetstar Airways is to expand its Chinese network to a sixth destination with the launch of a three times weekly service from Singapore Changi International to Ningbo. Jetstar Asia already operates flights between Singapore and Guilin, Haikou, Hangzhou and Shantou, carrying an estimated 88,000 O&D passengers on these routes into China, around 2.9 per cent of the total market. The new route continues Jetstar Asia’s model of adding new travel options in China for customers from Singapore. There are no direct links between Singapore and Ningbo, with passengers currently having to connect via Beijing, Guanghzhou or Hong Kong. Jetstar Asia is the sole operator on all but one of its current four destinations in China, with the only competition coming from Tiger Airways on the Haikou route. This route is its most successful with an O&D market of 48,000 passengers last year, followed by Shantou (approximately 23,000), then Guilin (12,000) which was launched in November 2010 and Hangzhou (4,000) which was launched in March this year, although the latter has the strongest yield. The airline will inaugurate the new route on September 9 and is already planning to introduce a fourth weekly rotation from November 3.
GARUDA INDONESIA SET FOR INDIAN LAUNCH
Indonesia’s national carrier Garuda Indonesia is currently discussing its proposed network development in the Indian market and could announce plans to inaugurate links between Jakarta and Delhi and Mumbai before the end of this year, according to local sources. Earlier this year a revised bilateral treaty was signed between Indonesia and India allowing Garuda Indonesia access to the Indian market with traffic rights to the top 20 destinations in the country. The airline is now working on its network strategy and is expected to initially offer a daily schedule between Jakarta and Delhi and Mumbai, latter adding flights to other Indian destinations on an up to three times weekly basis. An estimated 142,000 O&D passengers travelled between Indonesia and India in the past year despite the absence of non-stop flights. The majority of these customers used the flights of Singapore Airlines via Singapore Changi (37.3 per cent), Malaysia Airlines via Kuala Lumpur (23.7 per cent) and Thai Airways International via Bangkok (23.7 per cent). Unsurprisingly, Delhi and Mumbai have the largest traffic flows with 31.2 per cent and 30.1 per cent shares of the total traffic from Indonesia, respectively. Other key markets include Chennai (12.2 per cent), Bangalore (11.0 per cent), Kolkata (5.6 per cent) and Hyderabad (4.7 per cent), and all are likely to be included in the second stage of Garuda Indonesia’s expansion in India. Despite the absence of direct flights Indonesia is the second largest trading partner of India within the ASEAN market. According to official government statistics trade between the two countries reach $12.6 billion in the past year, up from $4 billion just five years ago. Local forecasts expect these figures to grow to $25 billion by 2015 although trade is actually increasing faster than estimated. The addition of new air services will further expedite this.
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