Market churning? H
aving reached a high of almost 7.8 million passengers in 2007/08, the Belfast air travel market has been slowly
decreasing year-on-year, with the most notable development being Ryanair’s decision to exit Belfast City and Flybe’s return to that market. Belfast’s big boom in 2007/08 was mainly due to Ryanair commencing services from Belfast City, and Aer Lingus’ decision to open a base at Belfast International in January 2008. Ryanair initially operated four routes from Belfast City from the beginning of winter 2007/08, while Aer Lingus opened a route to London Heathrow, competing with bmi at Belfast City. Ryanair quickly delivered signifi cant volume increases from Belfast City to East Midlands and London Stansted. Meanwhile, for Belfast International, Aer Lingus’ Heathrow route delivered over a quarter of a million passengers in its fi rst year of operation.
While the overall volume in the market grew by 8% in 2007/08, load factors at both airports took a hit. For Belfast City, this was a modest 1%, whereas for Belfast International, this was 8%. The impact of the Ryanair expansion was felt more acutely at Belfast International, as the airport already had service to all of the destinations served by Ryanair.
Importantly for Belfast City, it started to grow market share against its competitor – in 2006/07, this was 29% and by 2009/10, it had grown to 40%. As all of Ryanair’s routes were domestic, this had a major impact on the share of domestic traffi c to/from Belfast, and Belfast City (BHD) now has almost 52% of the
26 DOMESTIC SHIFT IN BALANCE Belfast City (BHD) Belfast International (BFS) 2005–06
domestic market. Although this looks encouraging for Belfast City, there are signifi cant obstacles that are a major problem to further expansion beyond domestic borders.
Belfast City’s constraints The main issue for Belfast City is that it operates with two major operational restrictions. Firstly, the runway is only 1,829 metres long, and secondly, there is a curfew limiting operations to 06:30–21:30. This limits the range and type of aircraft that can operate from the airport. The curfew further impacts the airport’s commercial operations, as carriers, particularly low-cost carriers, need to utilise their aircraft fully and restrictive hours of operation can negatively effect their business.
The airport had submitted planning permission for a runway extension, but this has now been called into a public enquiry,
There has been plenty of airline action in the Belfast market recently – ASM’s Mark Clarkson takes a closer look at what this means for Northern Ireland.
2009–10 Source: UK CAA Airport Statistics (August-July fi gures).
and with that announcement (and inevitable delay that comes with it), Ryanair took the decision to remove all services from Belfast City on August 31.
The potential impact for Belfast City is
clear: Ryanair carried almost 940,000 passengers in the year to July 2010, representing a third of the total annual throughput at the airport.
Belfast International does not have these operational restrictions, and with a much longer runway option at nearly 2,800 metres, airlines can fl y non-stop to destinations further afi eld, such as Continental with its New York service.
Capacity revisions Ryanair’s departure has had a signifi cant impact on monthly capacity. With no backfi ll, Belfast City’s capacity would have been down over 40%. However, just one week after Ryanair’s
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