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As our sister daily The Malta Independent exclusively reported recently, the MTA is in discussions with Ryanair with regard to a base. It could well become one of the topics during the summer parliamentary recess. The following analysis is based on the routes suggested by Ryanair (TMID, 20 May). UNITED KINGDOM Bournemouth As sponsor of Portsmouth FC, Air Malta pays tons of money to the club even though it does not fly to the place (Southampton) and considering that the area has so much potential, particularly with the Royal Navy relationship and the network provided by FlyBe, Britain’s largest domestic airline. Southampton should be the priority but if nothing progresses, then Bournemouth is there. It is already a Ryanair base and hence would not require one in Malta. One has to be a bit careful as regards the pressure on the year-round Exeter charter service and the Britstol flights. Still, the south coast of England is a bit of a hole on the map and the area has some interesting customers for Malta. London-Stansted London is anything but a new, underserved area. What could happen is that Stansted, 40kms away from Luton, might be declared ‘new area’ by the mid of next summer, and a new, maybe even fatter, 5-year subsidy given to Ryanair for Stansted, while shutting down the Luton run, so simply swapping and getting new fat money for this, after first destroying Stansted services through the subsidized parallel flight. Birmingham Contrary to what one has been led to believe in another English-language paper, there are actually plenty of flights to Birmingham already (someone had claimed there were no flights), with Air Malta, Thomas Cook Airlines and Thomsonfly, all very important airlines for Malta (Thomsonfly also markets Air Malta flights through its website for airports from where it doesn’t fly) which one should not try to scare away or cut frequency. The vertically integrated carriers are a very good return on investment since their arrivals stay longer, meaning more bed nights than passengers coming with carriers for maybe one or two nights. So, Birmingham is anything but a new area and thus requires no further discussion. Hopefully, the new twice weekly Leeds run will not be a simple replacement of the current once weekly Air Malta Leeds charter run, while nibbling off Manchester traffic of Air Malta, Easyjet and the UK leisure carriers given the proximity of airports and a rather empty area north and east of Leeds, meaning that one sources on traffic usually flying from Manchester anyway. From the isles, Bournemouth and particularly Shannon/Ireland could have been better additions, Belfast remaining missing too. WEST EUROPE Belgium Brussels-Charleroi, which is relatively close to Brussels International (Zaventem), is connected to Malta with a daily Air Malta run plus twice weekly by Belgian carrier Jetairfly. Air Malta has just developed this with a number of connections with its code-share partner Brussels Airlines, a Lufthansa subsidiary, but the route mostly survives on point-to-point services. The service to Brussels International is essential for obvious official purposes, so clearly no risks for some low-cost-at-any cost stunt. If there is room for growth, Air Malta could always switch from the usual A319 to the larger A320. Paris-Beauvais Air Malta has grown its capacity on Paris enormously this year. Orly and Charles-de-Gaulle airports are both served and on most days there are two flights to Paris. EuropeAirPost also runs. There is no need to add even more capacity when first this growth needs to be filled. In the longer-term perspective, if one wants to maybe push Europe Air out, one could bring in Transavia, the low-cost/Euro leisure subsidiary of Air France/KLM, which has run Amsterdam-Malta for many years. For a Ryanair France route, there could be the possibility of Marseille year-round, but this might come at the cost of losing a good deal of the Air Malta summer runs, which would be bad since tour operators want to offer a variety of routes. Yet one does not have a winter schedule operation so far. With maybe two Ryanair and one or two Air Malta runs in summer instead of the three Air Malta ones, but with two additional Ryanair winter ones, it could be a plus. SPAIN The Valencia run failed after Ryanair first cashed in the fat initial, well, support. But if it wants to take it up again, why not, same as with Seville: far and wide no other services. But both mean carrying people from one sunny warm Mediterranean place to another similar place and the Spanish consumer market is badly hit. Sure, from both places one also flies to Alghero in Sardinia, but that is way less costly due to proximity. Still, if Ryanair wants to run, no problem. As further suggestions, one could also get links to/from colder or inland (or both) places in Spain, in particular Zaragoza, and maybe Santander, because then Malta is something different. Also, Ryanair has a base in Porto/north Portugal, maybe Malta could be added if they want, though it might not be easy. It is better to achieve genuine growth from the Iberian peninsula than simple parallel flights from already well-served areas. ITALY Milan-Bergamo In an article in the Sunday Times of Malta of January 2005, I had pointed out that Bergamo particularly, as well as Bologna, were two routes that could make good money for Ryanair. But Ryanair’s profits should not be the prime concern. After Alitalia and then low-cost carrier Volare pulled out, Air Malta increased capacity to Milan and now has a daily flight. In addition to this, there is now twice-weekly seasonal flight from Verona, which helps cover the area east of Milan (Air Malta) and west of Venice-Treviso (Ryanair). Bergamo airport is just as near from the eastern outskirts of Milan as Malpensa is for the west. For point-to-point services both are really exchangeable as they cater for the same market. It is definitely no new area. For a Bergamo service no Malta base is necessary. Bergamo is a very interesting DIY-transit hub. Generally, for Milan, maybe one could get someone else instead of Ryanair, as there are other options, say AirOne/Alitalia, even Easyjet. The fact is that expanded capacity is not needed for 11 months of the year because there already is overcapacity for these months. The Bergamo route would definitely be a big moneymaker for Ryanair, but it could be at the cost of volumes generated by Air Malta. If there is a Bergamo run, the Verona summer run should not come back, though of course Bergamo would be year-round. Its negative impact on Malpensa traffic would of course also be year-round. Turin: From the suggested two airports in the north, maybe Turin is the lesser evil from the Air Malta perspective, though not really that far from Turin to Milan-Malpensa, just 100 kms of motorway, not actually that much further away than Malpensa from Milan. The hinterland of Turin is sparsely populated so they will definitely need to draw passengers away from Milan onto that flight. If the frequency is not more than two flights weekly and one could be sure no other flights are brought in with some tricks from Malpensa or Bergamo, it might still be OK. Yields would definitely be hit and Air Malta might consequently create equilibrium by cutting its capacity in line with Ryanair’s. Bologna Bologna is already linked by Air Malta, which took it over after Meridiana. Napoli It would be very good if flights could be improved, as I have noted earlier (TMIS, 17 August). Napoli is no easy outgoing market: Campania is a poor region with big social discrepancies. But with 5.8 million inhabitants – cannot one really run, say, twice a week? After all low trip costs (distance is slightly shorter than even Malta-Bari) make this flight more attractive also with not so great loads/yields. Windjet, Air Malta, and Alitalia only deliver(ed) in the real peak season like August. Malta could profit from a Ryanair innovation. But first counter-check if Ryanair is also interested in Napoli’s airport, or if it is only giving that impression in Malta. Because Napoli-Capodichino airport is nearing capacity limits, it is not exactly an airport that is desperate for Ryanair, and there are already strong non-subsidized low-cost carriers there who might not be at all amused if Ryanair is brought in with its usual extra support. Therefore, it would be a bit surprising to see them there, while for Ryanair it certainly is a very interesting market, no doubt, so it might take it up without the usual “embraces”. The Salerno airport runway is too short for a B737-800. Napoli airport in turn is run by BAA, with which Ryanair does not have good relations. But again, if they want to run, sure. Furthermore, I already suggested Pescara, temporarily a Ryanair base, as a sort of Rome-East (only 200kms away) not putting too much pressure on the core Rome service, for a summer schedule service. With Pescara one could activate a genuinely new area during the peak season, offering an alternative to Rome while not seriously damaging it. But Napoli is priority due to much larger population potential. If Ryanair wants to genuinely run Napoli-Malta, definitely support it, although it will not need a Malta-based plane for that. Also Bari and Venice work without it, with aircraft coming in from Hahn continuing after changing loads. In the second part of this two-part series, Mr Merzhäuser looks at the potential of Eastern EU/Krakow, Tunisia, Turkey, and Israel routes as well as other related issues next week.
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