NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
News IN BRIEF
Scandinavian Airlines is to restart flights from Bristol this summer. SAS will fly twice-weekly to Stockholm from June 30 to August 15. The airline also announced new routes from Edinburgh, Leeds Bradford and Aberdeen to Scandinavia.
Accor is to open a Novotel in the Wembley area of London. The 235-room hotel is scheduled to open by April. Facilities will include 12 serviced apartments, two meetings rooms and a fitness centre.
AIRLINES
CHINA TO FUEL AIR PASSENGER GROWTH
AIR TRAVEL IS SET TO RISE by nearly one- third by 2017, with China being the major driver of passenger growth, according to a forecast by IATA.
The International Air Travel Association is predicting that total airline passenger numbers will rise to 3.91 billion in 2017 – up by 930 million passengers on the 2.98 billion carried by airlines in 2012. This would mean an average annual rise of 5.4 per cent. Routes within and connected to China will account for almost one quarter of these extra passengers – around 85 per cent will be on domestic routes and the other 15 per cent will be international passengers. The regions expected to see the slowest growth in air travel are North America, with a compound annual growth rate of 3.6 per cent, and Europe with growth of 3.9 per cent per year, while the Middle East is forecast to see annual rises of around 6.3 per cent.
AIRPORTS
You compete with the likes of Easyjet – how
do you differentiate? The difference is large, because we're already at the
GATWICK AND NORWEGIAN
10 1
GATWICK HAS SIGNED a new commercial deal with budget airline Norwegian, allowing continued expansion at the airport. Norwegian started flying from Gatwick in 2009 and opened a base there for the first time for summer 2013, offering 25 destinations. The carrier is planning to expand its Gatwick routes to 33 in 2014, including three long-haul services using Boeing 787 Dreamliners to New York, Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale. As part of the new agreement, Gatwick is promising to
“provide a better outcome in terms of the quality of airport facilities, service levels and price”. Gatwick’s CEO Stewart Wingate described the partnership with Norwegian as a “landmark” in the airport’s history.
same level of service and product as a legacy airline. We connect passengers to other airlines. We’re interlining and codesharing. We have two frequent-flier programmes – our own, but we also provide Avios. We are distributing 50 per cent of our tickets through travel agencies. We have a business class.
People often describe Vueling as a ‘hybrid’
model. Do you agree?
There’s no such thing as a hybrid; there is only one thing – a really low-cost base, and then the product that everyone wants. We don’t belong to the product base that Easyjet and Ryanair do. Caroline [McCall, Easyjet
Alex Cruz
You are expanding operations across
Europe, adding new bases in Brussels and Rome – what’s your strategy? To fortify and grow in our home airport in Barcelona – we’re flying to 118 destinations from there, and next year we should be the airline with the largest number of short-haul destinations [from our home hub] in Europe. Also, we plan to expand on non-Spain routes. By 2015 we will have over 100 aircraft – we currently have 70.
CEO] was saying they will never have a lounge – how can you say that? People love the lounge, they kill to get the miles for gold status to access it – that's what frequent fliers want.
But you’ve said you don’t mind Vueling
publicly described as a low-cost airline…
That’s because today a lot of people won’t bother going to
lufthansa.com or
airfrance.com, because they associate a high price point with those big traditional airlines – which many times is not the case. At the same time, there is tremendous association with having a better deal by going to
easyjet.com or
ryanair.com or
vueling.com, because we are in that space. But I challenge anyone in the industry to tell us we’re not a full-service airline, from a product and service perspective.
How has the acquisition
by IAG made a difference to Vueling?
The biggest single item has been cheaper aircraft. When IAG got involved with the negotiations with Airbus, it was great news for us. And IAG understands us very well – they respect us, don’t interfere and are tremendously supportive of what we are doing. I imagine if we lose money one day, though, that will change!
IN CONVERSATION… Alex Cruz
BBT talks to Alex Cruz, CEO and chairman of Barcelona-based airline Vueling, which serves more than 100 destinations and is part of British Airways’ parent company, IAG
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