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here are currently 5 main issues facing European low-cost car- Fuel Efficiency
riers: 1. Oil prices increase and its impact on LCCs; 2. Overca- EasyJet PLC on Wednesday posted a wider fis-
pacities and drop of the load factors; 3. Environment pressure cal first-half net loss amid higher fuel prices and
on LCCs; 4. Illegal Subsidies received by LCCs from public entities; said it will speed up the removal of less-effi-
5. Important and regular fall of LCCs shares. The increase of oil price cient airplanes from its fleet to trim operating
is definitely THE issue that will deeply modify LCCs industry in Eu- costs. The U.K.-based budget airline posted a
rope, and will probably have an impact on most business models. net loss of £43.3 million ($85.4 million) for the
Facing this “storm”, only the strongest will survive. Some have started six months ended March 31, compared with a
important cost-cutting programs; while others raise ancillary charges, year-earlier loss of £12.7 million.
such as check-in taxes (p. 2), and hidden charges. Flybe has adopted
other means to fill its planes, by hiring fake passengers, and therefore Airline websites still ripping off consumers,
to reach the quotas needed (p. 3). Brussels says
Despite these different measures, it is now clear that some LCCs won’t The 8th of May, the European Commission said
escape bankruptcy, and 2008 could be a turning year in this market EU consumers are still getting ripped off when
(p. 18). Centralwings, a subsidiary of the national polish carrier LOT, they buy airplane tickets online and threatened
could be one of them in a short term (p. 7). Therefore, we have made the industry with «further measures» if the si-
a detailed SWOT analysis of this carrier (p. 8). Another option for tuation does not change within one year. «It is
carriers to carry on is to merge with others. In Spain, Vueling and clic- unacceptable that one in three consumers going
kair, both in difficulties, are a good example. Some like Ryanair and to book a plane ticket online is being ripped off
Wizzair (p. 4) seems to have thighs through their major investors. or mislead and confused,» said consumer com-
missioner Meglena Kuneva when presenting
the findings in Brussels.
Air Scoop - Free Information and Analysis Services
Ryanair, EasyJet decline after Merrill cuts es-
Air Scoop provides its monthly analysis newsletter, and also other timates
free services available through our webistes, such as: Ryanair Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest discount
carrier, fell in Dublin trading after Merrill
1. SWOT Analysis Lynch cut its share-price estimate for the air-
Ryanair WizzAir line by 7.3 percent, citing increasing fuel costs.
easyJet CentralWings EasyJet Plc, Ryanair’s biggest competitor, and
Air Berlin ... British Airways Plc, Europe’s third-largest car-
Germanwings rier, also declined after Merrill lowered earnings
FlyBe European Low Cost Carriers estimates. Merrill cut its price target for Ryanair
Vueling Market to 3.80 euros a share from 4.10 euros, the bank
clickair French LCCs Market said today in a note to investors. The Dublin-
SkyEurope ... based carrier dropped as much as 4.6 percent.
With oil prices having crossed the $110 a barrel threshold, planning to launch a cost-cutting programme. One the one
LCCs are getting ready to tighten their belts. In the light hand, it will include negotiating ground handling contracts
of potential bankruptcy budget airlines seek to reduce the with airports to reduce all possible costs. O’Leary pointed
impact of record high fuel prices by all possible means. up his tough intentions and stressed that it would not take
him long to close operations at airports reluctant to come
To begin with let’s look at some figures. It comes as no to terms with Ryanair. Facile airports will, on the contrary,
surprises that LCCs will experience a significant loss in receive additional flights. If the situation gets worse, it will
earnings. Raising oil prices hit the pockets of LCCs and probably mean the wind down of many less profitable ba-
are expected to cause as many as £45m of additional costs. ses.
Some experts estimate a cut rate in earnings between 12 On the other hand, the programme also includes cutting
% and 53%. O’Leary himself has warned investors about inner costs by freezing top-management salary. If prices re-
a painful year forecasting a 50% fall in profits. Ryanair is main high, 36 executives should not expect to receive any
probably the worst affected airline as it remains unhedged salary bonus or pay increase. Since then, Ryanair said the
throughout this fiscal year. Although there is no sign of oil salaries of its staff not on multi-year pay agreements have
prices going down, Ryanair is only going to hedge if they been frozen which include pilots and cabin crew.
drop below $110.
Though most LCCs will have hard times ahead with pro-
However, the Irish carrier keeps its promise not to add fits cut up to 50%, the economic situation will definitely
any fuel surcharges to tickets. Passing on price increases to secure them from any further competition. While past
tickets will undermine the entire low-cost model. Never- economic breakdowns gave birth to airlines offering low-
theless, certain surcharges will be passed on to passengers cost services, this time it is highly unlikely that any new
as Ryanair is most likely going to introduce higher check-in carrier will enter the market due to oil prices, new envi-
and baggage fares. ronmental regulations and profit uncertainty. Additionally,
Against the backdrop of economic breakdown, weakening it will sweep away weaker LCCs providing the stronger
dollar and oil crisis, getting high yield revenue might be with more space. That is to say, that the stronger LCCs
quite problematic as this backdrop will certainly affect may even benefit from the recession. According to one of
purchasing power of consumption and have its impact on the managing directors of easyJet, there will be only three
the load factor. or four LCCs left in the nearest future. Most likely, some
less competitive airlines will prefer merging to leaving the
In response to increasing prices Ryanair, for example, is business.
EVENTS
Air Scoop is proud to be media partner of the World Low Cost Airlines 2008.
Plans are starting to take shape for the World Low Cost Airlines Congress 2008.
Earlier this year over 650 of you joined us in London for an action packed two days. To remind yourself of the day (or to
see what you missed!) we have put together a short video of the highlights. To see it simply visit our homepage. (You’ll
need to have flash installed on your computer.)
The story was published on April 1st, but it is far from The airline also accused the airport to have rejected a last
being a joke: at the end of March, British LCC Flybe tried minute deal about a partial fee reduction if the quota was
to hire temps to fill two extra flights on its Norwich-Du- not totally reached. It called the airport authorities « in-
blin route. transigent » and « greedy ». Richard Jenner, managing direc-
tor of Norwich airport, refuted Flybe’s arguments, disap-
Why such an absurd decision? Flybe receives from the proved the company’s methods and said these « unusual »
Norwich airport a 280.000 £ yearly reduction on passen- passengers would not be counted by the airport anyway.
gers fees, under one condition : it has to reach a certain
amount of passengers per year, globally and on some speci- Environmental campaigners also charged Flybe with pollu-
fic routes. The twelve-month period was ending at March ting the atmosphere needlessly by making planes fly « for
31st. The global amount of about 60.000 passengers had nothing ». Flybe admitted its fault, and promised to offset
been reached, and even exceeded by far. But on the speci- the carbon emissions caused by the extra flights. All the
fic Norwich-Dublin route, the quota of 15.000 passengers more since on its website, the Exeter-based British regional
had not been hit. 172 passengers were missing. airline, operating 78 planes to about 50 destinations, prou-
dly pretends to be « at the forefront of the efforts by the
Therefore, the LCC decided to set up extra flights, and airlines to reduce the environmental impact of air travel
chose some rather radical methods to fill them : first, it pu- and promote sustainable growth in the aviation industry
blished an advertisment on its website, offering free flights »...
on 200 return tickets to « celebrate 2 years flying on our
popular Norwich to Dublin route » ; secondly, it published Beyond its quite pathetic aspect, this story questions the
another ad on a specialized website, StarNow, to hire ac- whole LCC business model, partly based on subsidies paid
tors for 80 £ a day, plus free bar and in-flight entertain- by the airports to low-cost carriers under certain traffic
ment, just to fly from Norwich to Dublin and back, with conditions, which leads to such an absurd thing as paying
up to three flights on the same day. Finally, it also asked customers to consume!
its staff to stand ready, in case the two first solutions were
not sufficient. With this new example, the European LCC business seems
Setting up extra flights and hiring people to fill them was quite artificial. It frenetically creates new routes, injects
indeed less expensive than losing the benefit of the fee re- new planes in the European sky, and reaches overcapacity,
duction. trying to create essential demand to fill the aircrafts and
to survive on this very competitive market. On the other
Unfortunately, Flybe’s weird strategy was made public, and hand, it relies on subsidies to compensate damages of hard
led to a harsh quarrel between the airline and the airport. competition and the eventual lack of passengers. Many
« We have a deal with Norwich airport. We had to deliver analysts today agree that such a model is not completely
60.000 passengers. We have delivered 136.000, but there sane, and raise a question: Do LCCs still wonder if there is
was a clause buried in the bowels of the contract that we still a demand for all their flights?
had to hit 15.000 passengers on Dublin to Norwich, » Mike
Rutter, Flybe’s CCO, told on an Irish radio station.
In October 2007, Ryanair announced the entry to Buda- the Board. In essence, the close business ties and mutual
pest and started to operate flights on several routes from investments of Bonderman and Franke link Ryanair and
the Hungarian capital since the beginning of November. Wizzair together but how close their relationship is?
One of those routes was the Budapest – Frankfurt-Hahn
connection. Wizzair had been offering flights on this route
for more than three years but soon after Ryanair’s press
conference in October, the Hungarian low-cost carrier de-
cided to withdraw from the route. A potential explanation
to this could be that Wizzair did not want to be involved
in a direct competition with Ryanair on this single route.
However, rumours were already spreading about the si- William Franke David Bonderman
gnificant overlap between the major investors of the two
companies. Therefore, the withdrawal of Wizzair might Bonderman established Texas Pacific Group (TPG) in
have been an outcome of previous, informal negotiations. 1992, which has become one of the world’s richest and
In this article we will try to collect evidence that may sup- most successful private equity companies. In 1993, Bon-
port the existence of a potential “co-operation” between derman through TPG and other partners helped Conti-
Ryanair and Wizzair. nental Airlines out from bankruptcy. The total investment
amounted to $450 million. As a result, he became one of
First, Wizzair is the only European low-cost carrier besi- the directors of Continental and took a seat in the Board
des Ryanair, which is classified as ultra low-cost. In terms of Directors as well. Next year, in 1994, Bonderman, along
of the business model, Wizzair has therefore successfully with other investors like Fidelity Investments and Mesa
imitated Ryanair to a great extent. Based on recent data, Airlines, offered $220 million for a 37.5 percent stake in
Ryanair’s average fare including taxes and charges revolves America West, second largest low-cost carrier of the US
around 40 euros, while the same indicator for Wizzair is at that time, being in bankruptcy. In 1994 William Franke
50-55 euros. This is about 30-50 % lower than most of the was the chief executive officer of America West Airlines
average fare of European low-cost competitors. It is not (served in this position between 1993 and 2001). The deal
surprising that Wizzair has been able to imitate Ryanair’s was made, America West was saved and the beginning of
business model so well, what is more interesting is that it is the close business relationship between Bonderman and
only Wizzair that managed to do that so far. Does this im- Franke probably dates back to this period.
ply a stronger than usual tie between the two companies?
In 1996 Bonderman invested in yet another airline. For £25
It is a rather hopeless enterprise to obtain detailed data million, through TPG, he took a 20 percent stake in Rya-
on Wizzair’s financial performance as the company refuses nair. Since then, Ryanair has literally been soaring, and has
to reveal any sort of “commercially sensitive” information. grown from a minor player to a globally significant air car-
However, it is known that their major investor is Indigo rier and the biggest one in the world according to the num-
Partners, an Arizona based private investment firm, which ber of international passengers carried in 2007. It is also
is run by former America West Airlines head, Stanford gra- worth mentioning that Bonderman’s presence at Ryanair
duate William A. Franke. Indigo Partners is specialized in probably made negotiations with Boeing much smoother,
the transportation sector and is also the initial investor in thus Ryanair got control of its new fleet under favourable
Singapore-based low-cost carrier, Tiger Airways. Mr Fran- financial conditions.
ke holds the chairman position both at Wizzair and Tiger
Airways. Indigo Partners have already invested around 50 Building on the successful track record in air transportation
million euros in Wizzair, which makes the company one of investments, Indigo Partners became the joint enterprise of
the best capitalized Central European LCCs. Bonderman and Franke aimed to conquer Asian and Cen-
tral and Eastern European markets. In 2004, Indigo Partners
Indigo Partners was founded in 2002 by Mr Franke, Ste- helped establishing the first Asian low-cost air carrier, Ti-
ve Johnson and David Bonderman. The key figure in this ger Airways. Tiger Airways is backed by Singapore Airlines
puzzle, as we will see later, is Harvard Law School gradua- (49 % stake) and the Singapore government’s investment
te Mr Bonderman, who has served as a director of Ryanair arm Temasek (11 %), while Indigo Partners contributed
since 1995, and since 1996 he has been the Chairman of with a 24 % stake, whereas the investment vehicle of Ryan
family (including Tony Ryan, the co-founder of Ryanair), The above presented evidence does not mean to suggest
Irelandia Investments took a 16 percent share. The size of that there is an ongoing informal co-operation and negotia-
the total investment has not been disclosed. tion between Ryanair and Wizzair that may raise concerns
about a potential division of the market between themsel-
Wizzair was the other LCC, which was financially backed ves. However, the article do suggest that due to the subs-
since the beginning of its operation by Indigo Partners. Even tantial overlap between the major investors of the two air
though Bonderman withdrew from Indigo Partners after carriers, it may not be in the interest of the companies to
these deals and officially he does not hold now any posi- engage in a heated rivalry and direct competition. This is
tions in the equity firm, he is still affiliated with it through clearly reflected in the fact that even though both have
TPG’s share in Indigo Partners. Since the largest investors gained a quite significant share in the Central and Eastern
of both Ryanair and Wizzair have strong affiliations with European low-cost market, there is not even a single route
both Bonderman (chairman of Ryanair) and Franke (chair- on which both of them offer flights! Moreover, there are
man of Wizzair), one may legitimately argue that these ties only three city pairs (Gdansk-London, Poznan-London,
may be reflected in the day-to-day operation and business Wroclaw-London) that both Ryanair and Wizzair serve,
strategy of the air carriers. In other words, a direct battle however, the London destination differs as Ryanair flies to
between these airlines would not be in the interest of their Stansted while Wizzair flies to Luton.
investors.
Bearing all of this in mind, one may get a more nuanced
In order to highlight the magnitude of co-operation between picture of the European low-cost market. Especially regar-
Bonderman and Franke, the recent story of Russian low- ding the Central European region, Wizzair may be in a very
cost carrier, A1 is a good example to raise. A1 was esta- advantageous situation and it seems that its positions are
blished in 2007 and according to its business plan it is going not and probably will not be threatened by one of the big-
to offer domestic flights. As Russia’s daily on-line business gest potential rivals, Ryanair. This may hold true as long as
journal, kommersant.com reported last June, private fo- acquisitions and mergers or new entrants do not shake up
reign investors own a 49 percent stake in A1, out of which the current European status quo.
David Bonderman has 35 percent, while the co-owners of
Indigo Partners (including Franke) got 14 percent. What is
even more intriguing is that Michael O’Leary, CEO of Rya-
nair is also involved. He is expected to consult A1 in bu-
siness development issues. What is more, A1 has allegedly
signed an agreement with Indigo Partners for buying a stake
in Wizzair!
Jacek Ksen, member of the Board of Supervisors of the Po- directly raises the operating costs as older aircrafts use
lish flag carrier LOT, announced earlier this year that LOT more fuel and are less efficient than younger ones and may
is planning to divest its low-cost subsidiary Centralwings require higher maintenance costs as well.
as it has not turned profitable since it began operating in
February, 2005. Centralwings poses a textbook example of Fourth, the soaring oil prices seriously affected Centra-
how not to position and run a low-cost airline. In this arti- lwings’ cost structure. The low revenues (under €6 per
cle we will try to highlight the main reasons for its failure. seat) and the unsuccessful attempts to raise ancillary reve-
nues coupled with rising costs left the company in a dire
In 2004, low-cost carriers flew 1.2 million passengers on the financial position. In 2006 Centralwings reported to make
Polish market, way much above the estimations, which a an operating loss of 65 million Polish zloty (about €19
year earlier predicted about 580 thousand for 2004. The million), while in 2007 the deficit increased to 73 million
significant growth of this market segment and the parallel (about €21 million) versus a planned €35 million zloty.
shrinking of the market share of traditional carriers urged
LOT, the most exposed traditional carrier in Poland to the Fifth, the Polish government is planning to sell LOT and
competition from LCCs, to react quickly. The dilemma the first phase of it would be to list it on the stock ex-
was the following: LOT would either become a low-cost change later this year. This further casts shadows on Cen-
carrier itself or would launch its own low-cost subsidiary tralwings’ future.
as a response to the arrival of other LCCs. The manage-
ment of LOT committed itself to the latter option, there- As Waldemar Krolikowski, CEO of Centralwings revealed
fore Centralwings was born. to Polish business daily Puls Biznesu in February, 2008, ‘the
stronger players are driving out the weaker ones, first from
However, this commitment was rather half-hearted. Very the profitable routes, then from the market. This may be
limited financial assets were dedicated to Centralwings, Centralwings’ fate as well.’ This is well reflected in the fact
LOT has provided a capital investment of a mere $1.6 mil- that Centralwings decided to cancel operations on eight
lion. In comparison to this, after the first year of its opera- routes this year (Shannon – Gdansk, Manchester – Gdansk,
tion, Wizzair received a total capital injection amounting Manchester – Warsaw, Lille – Warsaw, Birmingham – Cra-
to €40 million. Despite being undercapitalised, LOT ex- cow, Cork – Cracow, Edinburgh – Poznan, Dortmund –
pected Centralwings to make profit soon. Szczecin). Most of them are routes between Poland and
the UK or Ireland, where the tough competition may have
The second mistake was the mismatch between the po- forced Centralwings to abandon operations.
sitioning of Centralwings in the low-cost market and its
business model. At the beginning, the company was targe- Krolikowski also mentioned that the business plan of the
ting UK destinations, which seemed the most profitable; carrier had been revised and in the future they would like
however, Centralwings had to face the toughest competi- to focus on charter flights and escape the “violent com-
tion there. EasyJet, Sky Europe, Wizzair and Ryanair had petition” in the scheduled market. However, for this plan
already been offering flights between Polish cities and the to execute, Centralwings needs capital, but in a situation
UK, moreover, they all had a much more favourable cost close to bankruptcy the management has been unsuccess-
structure than Centralwings. As a result, the Polish LCC’s ful at securing additional funds.
average fare price exceeded that of its competitors’, thus
it failed to match the intense price competition. Moreo- What is more likely is that Centralwings is going to fol-
ver, Centralwings have constantly been lacking a focused low the fate of former Polish low-cost carrier Air Polonia,
network, a problem Sky Europe also had to face. This si- which declared bankruptcy after three years of operation.
gnificantly harmed the profitability of Centralwings as it It is also very probable that Centralwings will be sold to
was unable to clearly target a market niche. a third party. In light of the above, LOT’s board member
Mr Ksen’s following remark sounds ironic enough exactly
Third, Centralwings was unable to take advantage of eco- three years after Centralwings began operation: ‘Our wi-
nomies of scale given its small fleet size (in May 2008 they thdrawal from Centralwings should have been carried out
still operate with 9 Boeing 737-s). Furthermore, its fleet three years ago. Creating the low-cost airline was a mis-
with an average age of 12.3 years (data from March 2008) take”.
is significantly older than the fleets of its closest rivals. This
Conclusion
Centralwings is already undergoing a complete restructu-
ring and also the IPO of LOT Polish airline is expected to
take place this year. So the final shape of things to come
in the Polish aviation market can only be seen after the
occurrence of the above events. But in the current scenario
the revival of Centralwings again as a low cost player seems
doubtful.
www.airlinebulletin.com
Over the previous weeks, several small US LCCs, inclu- deal with high fuel prices while they reassess their route
ding Aloha, ATA, and Skybus, have shut operations due networks. Small carriers and recent start-ups simply don’t
to high fuel costs. Because these carriers were so small, have enough.
they lacked the cash reserves to weather the fuel price
spike, which put them over the edge. It is important Is consolidation the answer? Possibly, if the match is a
to remember that while three LCCs shut down over a very good one. LCCs that have complementary route
matter of days, these carriers had operated at the margin networks and aircraft fleets could merge to create a larger
of the industry, and in at least one case (Skybus) with carrier better equipped to compete in the marketplace.
an unsuccessful business model. While larger US LCCs But the acquiring carrier will still see a lot of cash tied up
such as Southwest are struggling, they won’t disappear in a merger or buyout, cash desperately needed for fuel. A
anytime soon. The airlines that are most likely to declare combination could benefit both carriers in the long-term,
bankruptcy and potentially shutter operate older aircraft but carriers need to have some mechanism to deal with
(which use fuel less efficiently), have limited cash reser- their short-term woes, and consolidation will not provide
ves (to dip into to pay high fuel bills), and face significant that. What is more likely to happen are not mergers, but
competition (leading to insufficient yields). Since ATA, rather the failure of smaller carriers, and the acquisition of
Aloha, and Skybus were pushed over the edge, could the selected assets of these carriers from larger LCCs.
same thing happen in Europe, a far different market than
the US? The short answer is yes. To some extent, there will be regional consolidation, with
significantly fewer, but larger LCCs dominating in certain
First and foremost, it’s important to note that the largest markets. The potential merger of Vueling and Clickair de-
European LCCs, while potentially taking a hit in traffic monstrates this model in Spain. Air Berlin’s acquisitions
growth and profits from the spike in fuel costs, won’t li- have created a powerful LCC in the German market. Si-
kely go bankrupt with fuel costs at this level. Moreover, milar consolidation could occur in Italy, Scandinavia, and
carriers that generate revenue in euros or pounds have an Eastern Europe, creating larger, regional LCCs to compete
advantage over carriers that generate revenue in US dol- against pan-European Ryanair and easyJet. While short-
lars, since euros and pounds are much stronger currencies haul carriers are vulnerable, some low-cost long-haul car-
(and oil is priced in dollars) helping to soften the blow riers could be in even deeper trouble.
of higher oil prices. Ryanair, easyJet, Flybe, and Air Ber-
lin, should all survive this fuel spike, although they may Most charter operators should survive this bump, because
diminish their capacity (or at least reduce future growth) their packaged holidays give them a little more leeway
in order to cope. But, some smaller LCCs that have low with pricing and revenue generation. But carriers that
cash reserves and inefficient aircrafts are vulnerable. As in rely less on packaged holidays could feel squeezed. One
the United States, the very small carriers operating at the carrier of concern is Flyglobespan. They have expanded
margins of the air transportation business are those that very quickly (some would argue too quickly, as the carrier
are most likely to go under. has developed a strong reputation for poor service). As a
consequence, Flyglobespan has had to keep its fares low
In the short-haul market, smaller carriers that mostly rely to fill seats, diminishing yields and inhibiting the carrier
on discretionary leisure traffic and are having their niches from becoming profitable. Given their current operating
co-opted by larger LCCs or legacy carriers are the most circumstances, I seriously doubt the long-term viability
vulnerable. WindJet, Blue Air and Jet2 are all suscepti- of this carrier without a significant shift in their business
ble to a potential shutdown, because of limited route model.
networks, use of smaller or older aircraft, and increasin-
gly competitive markets. But these carriers represent only But other long-haul carriers with smaller networks could
a sample of the potential bankruptcy candidates. Car- also feel the pinch. Canada-based Zoom, which has set up
riers need to have sufficient cash on hand to operate and a UK subsidiary to offer flights between London and seve-