Air travel tends to be a fairly accurate barometer of a nation's economic health.
Particularly Air Cargo data are accurate indicators of changes in economic activity.

The latest CAA air passenger traffic figures for March 2017 indicate that the UK economy might be on a downward slope, as many major UK air routes report lower air traffic.
Now March 2016 included an early Easter and this may influence March 2017 figures negatively to a certain extend.

But the latest figures for the major UK airports are too negative for this just to be merely a statistical variation.

Ofcourse many routes are also reporting positive figures (not shown here), so a certain shift in pax. markets may be at play as well.

CAA - March 2017 - Passenger data

HEATHROW - ADDIS ABABA 13.600 -4%
HEATHROW - ABUJA 2.001 -75% (runway closed)
HEATHROW - ACCRA 16.374 -12%
HEATHROW - ASTANA 2.164 -3%
HEATHROW - ASHKHABAD 1.051 -24%
HEATHROW - AUCKLAND 1.012 -13%
HEATHROW - BAHRAIN 24.581 -2%
HEATHROW - BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN 4.581 -6%
HEATHROW - BANGALORE 12.893 -2%
HEATHROW - BERLIN (TEGEL) 56.755 -19%
HEATHROW - BARCELONA 52.365 -16%
HEATHROW - BERGEN 6.719 -38%
HEATHROW - BILBAO 13.133 -18%
HEATHROW - BUCHAREST 19.498 -4%
HEATHROW - CALGARY 23.639 -9%
HEATHROW - CAPE TOWN 35.522 -4%
HEATHROW - COLOMBO 18.774 -8%
HEATHROW - COPENHAGEN 78.190 -1%
HEATHROW - DELHI 89.627 -12%
HEATHROW - DETROIT 13.933 -12%
HEATHROW - DOHA 99.448 -1%
HEATHROW - GENEVA 111.717 -2%
HEATHROW - GOTEBORG 20.550 -14%
HEATHROW - GUANGZHOU 10 787 -3%
HEATHROW - HALIFAX 4.449 -15%
HEATHROW - HAMBURG 44.463 -11%
HEATHROW - HOUSTON 38.250 -8%
HEATHROW - ISTANBUL 69.362 -6%
HEATHROW - JEDDAH 16.461 -26%
HEATHROW - JOHANNESBURG 83.772 -1%
HEATHROW - KARACHI 3.559 -10%
HEATHROW - LAGOS 26.091 -18%
HEATHROW - LOS ANGELES 118.744 -5%
HEATHROW - LYON 21.705 21 705 -2%
HEATHROW - LUANDA 1.023 -33%
HEATHROW - MARSEILLE 18.679 -3%
HEATHROW - MELBOURNE 9.805 -15%
HEATHROW - MIAMI 88.933 -11%
HEATHROW - MINNEAPOLIS 10.702 -10%
HEATHROW - MUMBAI 77.255 -3%
HEATHROW - NEW YORK (JFK) 223.216 -7%
HEATHROW - OTTAWA 9.083 -7%
HEATHROW - PARIS (CHARLES DE GAULLE) 94.680 -4%
HEATHROW - PARIS (ORLY) 23.584 -4%
HEATHROW - PHILADELPHIA 36.673 -9%
HEATHROW - PHOENIX 18.557 -2%
HEATHROW - RIYADH 17.137 -21%
HEATHROW - RIO DE JANEIRO 9.306 -21%
HEATHROW - SAO PAULO 32.852 -8%
HEATHROW - SEATTLE 26.845 -7%
HEATHROW - SOFIA 12.622 -15%
HEATHROW - STAVANGER 13.873 -7%
HEATHROW - STOCKHOLM 84.418 -2%
HEATHROW - SYDNEY 23.299 -5%
HEATHROW - ST JOHNS 1.777 -14%
HEATHROW - TASHKENT 1.641 -26%
HEATHROW - TORONTO 79.172 -4%
HEATHROW - VANCOUVER 39.702 -11%
HEATHROW - WASHINGTON (DULLES) 65.925 -5%
HEATHROW - ZAGREB 12.369 -14%
HEATHROW - ZURICH 90.641 -6%

GATWICK - BERLIN (SCHONEFELD) 44.035 -17%
GATWICK - DUBAI 76.921 -8%
GATWICK - LAS VEGAS 22.040 -17%
GATWICK - LYON 21.775 -10%
GATWICK - MALE 4.717 -21%
GATWICK - MARSEILLE 9.071 -13%
GATWICK - PORT OF SPAIN 5.172 -46%
GATWICK - PROVIDENCIALES 1.494 -60%
GATWICK - ST KITTS 1.519 -66%
GATWICK - TAMPA 10.696 -16%
GATWICK - TOBAGO 2.633 -67%
GATWICK - VANCOUVER 5.271 -9%

LONDON City - NANTES 1.038 -47%
LONDON CITY - NICE 2.453 -18%
LONDON CITY - PARIS (ORLY) 7.053 -25%

STANSTED - BERGERAC 4.571 -10%
STANSTED - BERLIN (SCHONEFELD) 35.511 -11%
STANSTED - BIARRITZ 5.024 -23%
STANSTED - BRATISLAVA 16.191 -19%
STANSTED - DUBLIN 73.732 -5%

ABERDEEN - COPENHAGEN 2.276 -14%
ABERDEEN - DUBLIN 3.182 -8%
ABERDEEN - FRANKFURT 7.950 -8%
ABERDEEN - KEFLAVIK 872 -15%
ABERDEEN - PARIS (CHARLES DE GAULLE) 5.780 -33%

BIRMINGHAM - DELHI 6.769 -51%
BIRMINGHAM - LARNACA 4.060 -10%
BIRMINGHAM - HAMBURG 2.170 -6%
BIRMINGHAM - HANOVER 3.828 -6%
BIRMINGHAM - KEFLAVIK 4.651 -8%
BIRMINGHAM - NEW YORK (EWR) 4.850 -18%
BIRMINGHAM - STUTTGART 4.741 -24%

CARDIFF - AMSTERDAM 10.440 -11%
CARDIFF - MUNICH 823 -44%

EDINBURGH - COPENHAGEN 17.089 -3%
EDINBURGH - CORK 3.218 -7%
EDINBURGH - DOHA 10.370 -3%
EDINBURGH - DUBLIN 48.095 -5%
EDINBURGH - DUSSELDORF 460 -50%
EDINBURGH - FRANKFURT 13.013 -9%
EDINBURGH - ISTANBUL 4.484 -36%
EDINBURGH - MADRID 13.770 -11%
EDINBURGH - NEW YORK (EWR) 8.663 -3% (JFK was introduced)
EDINBURGH - OSLO 5.107 -13%
EDINBURGH - PARIS (CHARLES DE GAULLE) 28.226 -4%

GLASGOW - BYDGOSZCZ 597 -76%
GLASGOW - DUBLIN 40.634 -6%
GLASGOW - GDANSK 2.365 -14%
GLASGOW - POZNAN 547 -78%
GLASGOW - WARSAW (CHOPIN) 2.706 -17%
GLASGOW - WARSAW (MODLIN) 4.402 -10%

LIVERPOOL - BERLIN (SCHONEFELD) 5.110 -18%
LIVERPOOL - DUBLIN 34.123 -29%

MANCHESTER - ABU DHABI 36.723 -15%
MANCHESTER - DUBAI 85.751 -3%
MANCHESTER - DUBLIN 84.506 -2%
MANCHESTER - FRANKFURT 28.884 -15%
MANCHESTER - HANOVER 3.279 -26%
MANCHESTER - HONG KONG 10.639 -2%
MANCHESTER - ISTANBUL 16.945 -26%
MANCHESTER - JEDDAH 7.192 -13%
MANCHESTER - LARNACA 676 -44%
MANCHESTER - MADRID 13.078 -5%
MANCHESTER - MUNICH 28.109 -5%
MANCHESTER - NEW YORK (JFK) 8.394 -52%
MANCHESTER - NEW YORK (EWR) 8.624 -1%
MANCHESTER - ORLANDO 25.204 -11%
MANCHESTER - PHILADELPHIA 10.428 -4%
MANCHESTER - SINGAPORE 7.261 -24%
MANCHESTER - TORONTO 1.820 -24%

NEWCASTLE - DUBAI 20.490 -6%

https://www.caa.co.uk/Data-and-analysis ... a-2017-03/

after Brexit, a large number of foreign companies plan to shift their European headquarters out of London.
I assume that will have a major impact on business loads in & out of London.

From a local of Cardiff Airport, AMS is partially down due to the heavy fog issues experienced in March. When KLM run 3 flights per day this can be an issue. However there would of still been a drop but not quite as much possibly.

However the main factor for all these routes is no doubt an early easter in 2016. That could probably explain any drop less than about 5%.

I have 2 main issues with this:

Firstly, It's interesting to note that out of what must be over 1000 routes that operated ex-UK in March, you have only selected the small batch routes showing a decrease in passengers, while most UK airports are posting rises in passenger figures overall, some in double digit growth.

Of course the picture is going to look bleak when only one side of the story is being reported. It's almost like there is an agenda. I believe this is at least the second time this style of post has been written, with the same sort of content that only negative routes were cherrypicked. If I were to post the list of all routes with increases, I'm sure people would see the real picture.

Secondly, and more importantly, the Easter holidays, which gives a spike in passenger figures, was in April this year while it was in March last year, so, it gives a distorted picture. In other words, a lot of passengers that were likely to have travelled in March last year will have travelled in April this year.

Therefore, I really wouldn't read too much into these decreases, it certainly doesn't seem indicative to the overall picture.

Personally I would look at the overall traffic rather than cherry pick certain routes:
LHR pax up 1%, LGW pax up 8%, MAN pax up 10%, BHX pax up 9% (all Mar 17 compared with Mar 16).
Those growth rates all look pretty healthy to me.
Drilling down a bit more:
LGW EU pax +7%, LGW non-EU Intl pax +10% (Mar 17 compared with Mar 16)
MAN EU pax +15%, MAN non-EU Intl pax +3% (Mar 17 compared with Mar 16)
No economic warning signs there.

"Brexit" .... nothing to do with late easter in April? Storm Dorris and the March weather? Oh and you've picked international routes from major airports. What about Leisure routes? What about other airports? What about those routes that have shown growth to show a balanced picture?

Arion640 wrote:

From a local of Cardiff Airport, AMS is partially down due to the heavy fog issues experienced in March. When KLM run 3 flights per day this can be an issue. However there would of still been a drop but not quite as much possibly.
However the main factor for all these routes is no doubt an early easter in 2016. That could probably explain any drop less than about 5%.

CWL international traffic was NOT down in March 2017:

EU pax traffic was up 7% (cf. March 2016), non-EU Intl was up 26%.

Then explain why Cardiff Airport was up 11% on March 2016? Munich has always been a hard route for the airport to fill. Also with reference to KLM and AMS. Flybe pulled their CDG flight forward to the morning and many long haul connections now link up with that because their isn't a 8 hour wait in AMS if you miss the 9.30 departure.

GCT64 wrote:

Arion640 wrote:

From a local of Cardiff Airport, AMS is partially down due to the heavy fog issues experienced in March. When KLM run 3 flights per day this can be an issue. However there would of still been a drop but not quite as much possibly.
However the main factor for all these routes is no doubt an early easter in 2016. That could probably explain any drop less than about 5%.

CWL international traffic was NOT down in March 2017:

EU pax traffic was up 7% (cf. March 2016), non-EU Intl was up 26%.

I know CWL growth is not down, the airport is growing faster than ever and now has suceeded in securing a Qatar Airways route.

I was just responding to the highlighted CWL route as this is the only one I really have enough knowledge to comment on.

What is going on in the "Costas"? And this March was not even Easter (!)

GLA-AGP +137%
BFS-AGP +115%
BFS-ALC +78%
GLA-ALC +71%
MAN-ALC +37%
EDI-ALC +26%
MAN-AGP +23%
BHX-AGP +15%
LGW-ALC +15%

No surprise now you go to Benidorm in February or Marbella in November and it looks like it is the new high-season .

Something interesting I noticed is that in general the wealthiest the area served by each British airport, the more passengers AGP has VS ALC.

On the Lufthansa routes haven't they been hit with some industrial action during this time period.

The US routes are almost certainly being constrained by currency issues from the UK.

There is also the Easter Effect and simple calendar effects such as the MAN-HKG route which ran 4 weekly in both periods however actually had two fewer rotations in the 2017 month.

Having said that I to expect some softening to be evident particularly towards 2017 Q4 and into 2018.

There is already notable reductions coming through particularly on the North Atlantic compared to 2016/2017 in Q4.

Time will tell however don't see full blown recession but certainly significant slowing in growth in 2018 and 2019 imho.

The UK market WILL change in the next decade what ever the form the EU exit negotiations take so double digit growth may be coming to end for some time to come imho.

Definitely the Easter factor on the routes presented at the top. The summer season only really gets going after Easter, and the large movement of students at Easter is also factored out by it being in April.

Meaningless figures when the lack of any adjustment or even context is missing.

One the biggest indicators of overall strength of the economy is BA long-haul premium traffic and that seems to be holding up quite well.

History has shown that leisure traffic can remain quite resilient in a downturn.

In any event, uk is still in The EU, the divorce is being negotiated and the effects of this future separation have yet to be felt by the economy.

For a poster known as "factsonly" I'm not sure you're posting all of them.....

What? No. Certainly not.

SCQ83 wrote:

What is going on in the "Costas"? And this March was not even Easter (!)

GLA-AGP +137%
BFS-AGP +115%
BFS-ALC +78%
GLA-ALC +71%
MAN-ALC +37%
EDI-ALC +26%
MAN-AGP +23%
BHX-AGP +15%
LGW-ALC +15%

No surprise now you go to Benidorm in February or Marbella in November and it looks like it is the new high-season .

Something interesting I noticed is that in general the wealthiest the area served by each British airport, the more passengers AGP has VS ALC.

Could be due to the political situation in Turkey?
The Terror related incident in Tunisia?
The security situation in Egypt?

So, people for their holidays are going back to Spain?

factsonly wrote:

Air travel tends to be a fairly accurate barometer of a nation's economic health.
Particularly Air Cargo data are accurate indicators of changes in economic activity.

The latest CAA air passenger traffic figures for March 2017 indicate that the UK economy might be on a downward slope, as many major UK air routes report lower air traffic.
Now March 2016 included an early Easter and this may influence March 2017 figures negatively to a certain extend.

But the latest figures for the major UK airports are too negative for this just to be merely a statistical variation.

Ofcourse many routes are also reporting positive figures (not shown here), so a certain shift in pax. markets may be at play as well.

CAA - March 2017 - Passenger data

HEATHROW - AUCKLAND 1.012 -13%
HEATHROW - MELBOURNE 9.805 -15%
HEATHROW - SYDNEY 23.299 -5%

MANCHESTER - HONG KONG 10.639 -2%
MANCHESTER - SINGAPORE 7.261 -24%

https://www.caa.co.uk/Data-and-analysis ... a-2017-03/

How about listing those that have grown, to make more representative?

There are no direct flights from the UK to Auckland, Melbourne and Sydney. Presumably CAA statistics are derived from 'straight through' flights. If passengers break their journeys in Dubai, Hong Kong or Singapore for a day or more, that effectively reduces passenger numbers to the ultimate destination. The same would apply for UK to India passengers, spending a few days in Dubai.

Damned lies and statistics.

Why is China missing, big uptake in visitors from China due to Brexit currency changes making it more of a shopping holiday.

There seems to be an agenda to only present negative news on certain topics including Brexit. The economic doom scenarios aren't happening. Companies that wanted to move, have an excuse to move.

L

GCT64 wrote:

Personally I would look at the overall traffic rather than cherry pick certain routes:
LHR pax up 1%, LGW pax up 8%, MAN pax up 10%, BHX pax up 9% (all Mar 17 compared with Mar 16).
Those growth rates all look pretty healthy to me.
Drilling down a bit more:
LGW EU pax +7%, LGW non-EU Intl pax +10% (Mar 17 compared with Mar 16)
MAN EU pax +15%, MAN non-EU Intl pax +3% (Mar 17 compared with Mar 16)
No economic warning signs there.

Those numbers show Britain'sub #1 issue is a lack of airport growth. LHR, LGW, STAN, and LTN all need growth.

Lightsaber

factsonly wrote:

CAA - March 2017 - Passenger data

https://www.caa.co.uk/Data-and-analysis ... a-2017-03/

Interesting data, which table is it from ?

BREXIT has not really happened yet. To look for signs of it, this is nearly 2 years to early and than it can take some time to really bite. I am one of the crowd that things the UK will do a lot worse after BREXIT, but that is my opinion.

Not much to read from the traffic figures.
A lot more leisure capacity, especially on shorter routes (i,e, less Sharm El Sheik, more ALC). April will no doubt show a pronounced increase in passenger numbers overall -but that is not necessarily representative of the economy.

But the economic figures themselves, growth was lower than expected in the first 3 months of the year. A mere 0.3% growth. Compare that with Spain's 0.8%.

The world economy is seems to be accelerating. It looks like the UK's -resilient with some Brexit delusions after the referendum- is starting to stare reality in the face.

It must be the £4500 per family hit we have been taken, the recession, depression, housing market collapse, exodus of foreign companies, having to pay to go abroad, collapse of the NHS and predicted collapse in IPOs listing in London that we were promised if we voted leave?

Can on presume that NO routes experienced any growth as none are listed!? No mention of easyJet adding routes and aircraft, Ryanair doing the same and WIZZ adding a new base?

Brexit is a catastrophe. I wish I wasn't in aviation.

Summa767 wrote:

Not much to read from the traffic figures.
A lot more leisure capacity, especially on shorter routes (i,e, less Sharm El Sheik, more ALC). April will no doubt show a pronounced increase in passenger numbers overall -but that is not necessarily representative of the economy.

But the economic figures themselves, growth was lower than expected in the first 3 months of the year. A mere 0.3% growth. Compare that with Spain's 0.8%.

The world economy is seems to be accelerating. It looks like the UK's -resilient with some Brexit delusions after the referendum- is starting to stare reality in the face.

Over he last five years the U.K. GDP growth has been at or below 0.3% for three quarters. Long before Brexit came along. What was the excuse for these out of interest? Russian hackers?

Brussels: +28%
Copenhagen: +32%
Paris CDG: -5%
Berlin: 2788
Dusseldorf: +4%
Cork: +30%
Dublin: +24%
Amsterdam: -3%
Barcelona: +21%
Madrid: 550
Geneva: +5%
Prague: +9%
Gdansk: 2659
Krakow: 2535
Warsaw: 2344
Wroclaw: 2522
Dubai: 20490 -5%

Heathrow: +4%
Aberdeen: -8%
Belfast Int: +7%
Cardiff: +16%
Southampton: -6%


Total pax: +11% for March

Newcastle, England doing terribly. Including the three new Polish routes announced #despitebrexit

sevenair wrote:

Summa767 wrote:

Not much to read from the traffic figures.
A lot more leisure capacity, especially on shorter routes (i,e, less Sharm El Sheik, more ALC). April will no doubt show a pronounced increase in passenger numbers overall -but that is not necessarily representative of the economy.

But the economic figures themselves, growth was lower than expected in the first 3 months of the year. A mere 0.3% growth. Compare that with Spain's 0.8%.

The world economy is seems to be accelerating. It looks like the UK's -resilient with some Brexit delusions after the referendum- is starting to stare reality in the face.

Over he last five years the U.K. GDP growth has been at or below 0.3% for three quarters. Long before Brexit came along. What was the excuse for these out of interest? Russian hackers?

The difference is that those quarters the growth was as expected or above. The latest figures are *below* expectations.

It was a question of time - The British currency fell against the US dollar to a 30 year low and is still below that level. That translates into higher costs for people and companies that have a downstream effect.

So even if trade has continued as normal -Brexit has not happened yet- Brits are already poorer and prospects clearly reflected in the value of their currency.
1.18 EUR for £1 will not stop people from going on holiday when they got 15% more 18 months ago-especially when airlines have had to lower fares at a cost to their profitability (partly reflected in EasyJet's share price massive drop after the vote and sterling sharp devaluation)-, but Brits will clearly have less disposable income, at home and abroad.

At least it looks like France will not succumb to populism as Britain has. That can only be good news.

Oh dear. Yes those nasty populists. All those people who voted for recur were uneducated racist xenophobes who didn't know what they were voting for. Right? We will also conveniently IGNORE the Qs where growth exceeded the prediction or just put it down the fact that we're still in the EU as your hardcore remainers like to do.

I've seen little evidence in anyone changing their travel plans due to the exchange rate. EasyJet share price did fall. It's still down compared to what it was but has continued to grow over the last few months.

Pound has made gains since the initial fall.

Maybe when the recession hits or when everyone stops coming to the UK or when we get charged to visit Europe that is when we will see an impact?

easyJet, Ryanair and Jet2 all seem to be doing rather well out of the UK. WiZZ has new base and upguaged flights to and from the UK. London has seen an increase in tourists benefiting from a lower pound but let's gloss over that.

New routes and increased frequencies are abound. Edinburgh airport expanding greatly, Luton expansions and improved ground transport. A commitment of 6 additional aircraft to LTN from U2.

Brexit is hideously bad right? It seems absolutely fine from where I'm sitting.

sevenair wrote:

Brexit is hideously bad right? It seems absolutely fine from where I'm sitting.

There is nothing to see for it has not actually happened. Yes, inflation is rising due to the drop in the currency -but business has continued as usual. If anything the nationalistic illusions among the many that voted for Brexit gave it a temporary boost in the same way that England doing well at a World Cup might. Temporarily.

Sterling has had a few tumbles and it's better on the prospect of a transition period, but it's still less than 1.30 US - *still a 30 year low*

Brits are clearly worse off. But that will not stop them from going on holiday to the Costas. Those who cross the pond will feel the pinch of their pride.

Yes. It's just terrible. End of the world stuff. All these airlines adding routes, aircraft. Not one has been removed.

But we know the rules: anything good, it's because we are still in. Anything bad, it's because we are leaving (ignoring the fact that we are still in EU).

Spain grew 0.8%. Following years in the doldrums. Could it be because of a surge in tourism to Spain predominately by Brits? I wonder how they'll do after we leave. After all we were told that we wouldn't be able to travel easily to the costas.

sevenair wrote:

Yes. It's just terrible. End of the world stuff. All these airlines adding routes, aircraft. Not one has been removed.

But we know the rules: anything good, it's because we are still in. Anything bad, it's because we are leaving (ignoring the fact that we are still in EU).

Spain grew 0.8%. Following years in the doldrums. Could it be because of a surge in tourism to Spain predominately by Brits? I wonder how they'll do after we leave. After all we were told that we wouldn't be able to travel easily to the costas.

Erm, I have certainly not mentioned any "end of the world stuff". The UK has made a fool of itself and the Brits are clearly paying more for things.
Spain has actually grown a lot better than the UK for quite a few quarters. Despite the crisis suffered, their prospects are good as they have fantastic infrastructure: More Km of high speed train lines than even Germany. How many does the UK have?
Spain are already producing a lot more cars than the UK.
As for tourism, it has increased from all origins including the UK but as a proportion of the overall it has actually been sliding.

sevenair wrote:

Yes. It's just terrible. End of the world stuff. All these airlines adding routes, aircraft. Not one has been removed.

To be fair, here at Manchester we lost the United Airlines route to Washington and in addition to that, AA have made the New York & Chicago flights into seasonal ones (although Philadelphia is still all year round).

I know UA have also culled a bunch of other UK routes.

Okay, we've had a few setbacks at MAN. But Iraqi Airways is averaging 100 passengers per flight. The "disappointing" CX only averaged something like 92% loads,., such a disaster of the route that it goes 5 weekly in June then daily in December.. EK's only averaged something like 461 passengers per flights... what an utter disaster! The SQ service was daily last year and is 5 weekly now so let's call that 28% drop in capacity with 24% fewer passengers so potentially yield up (and throw in the bonus of 105 passengers per flight on MAN-IAH). SFO operating only 3 times (1 return trip and 1 outbound) for 600 passengers or 75% loads,

Looking at the the main MAN-EU flows for hub traffc which ALL non-UK EU airlines will suffer from with no agreement:
CDG up 11%, FRA down 15% and MUC down 5% (LH strikes?), BRU up 34%, AMS up 6%, DUB down 2%

Not too bad.

That no allowance has been made for frequency reductions as to why number appear "heavily" down is beyond comprehension.

[photoid][/photoid]

sevenair wrote:

It must be the £4500 per family hit we have been taken, the recession, depression, housing market collapse, exodus of foreign companies, having to pay to go abroad, collapse of the NHS and predicted collapse in IPOs listing in London that we were promised if we voted leave?

Can on presume that NO routes experienced any growth as none are listed!? No mention of easyJet adding routes and aircraft, Ryanair doing the same and WIZZ adding a new base?

Brexit is a catastrophe. I wish I wasn't in aviation.

Don't forget that ryan air was threatning to drop a grand total of 3 domestic routes because of brexit.

The media put a spin on this to make it sound like ryan air was flying 100's of intra uk routes.

And since the disaster vote on June 23rd, Cardiff Airport has added routes to Madrid, Guernsey, Berlin, Rome, London City, another operator to faro (ryanair) and Qatar Airways to Doha. What a disaster.

Summa767 wrote:

sevenair wrote:

Yes. It's just terrible. End of the world stuff. All these airlines adding routes, aircraft. Not one has been removed.

But we know the rules: anything good, it's because we are still in. Anything bad, it's because we are leaving (ignoring the fact that we are still in EU).

Spain grew 0.8%. Following years in the doldrums. Could it be because of a surge in tourism to Spain predominately by Brits? I wonder how they'll do after we leave. After all we were told that we wouldn't be able to travel easily to the costas.

Erm, I have certainly not mentioned any "end of the world stuff". The UK has made a fool of itself and the Brits are clearly paying more for things.
Spain has actually grown a lot better than the UK for quite a few quarters. Despite the crisis suffered, their prospects are good as they have fantastic infrastructure: More Km of high speed train lines than even Germany. How many does the UK have?
Spain are already producing a lot more cars than the UK.
As for tourism, it has increased from all origins including the UK but as a proportion of the overall it has actually been sliding.

How is choosing a different path and not wanting to be part of the EU making a fool of ourselves? Good for Spain that they are growing but it still doesn't negate the fact that the UK is still a strong and robust economy. Yes it will face challenges but it's done that throughout it's history and is still thriving!
Plus the UK being the islands it is will still need air travel domestically and internationally and European so there's still going to be a big market.

Arion640 wrote:

[photoid][/photoid]

sevenair wrote:

It must be the £4500 per family hit we have been taken, the recession, depression, housing market collapse, exodus of foreign companies, having to pay to go abroad, collapse of the NHS and predicted collapse in IPOs listing in London that we were promised if we voted leave?

Can on presume that NO routes experienced any growth as none are listed!? No mention of easyJet adding routes and aircraft, Ryanair doing the same and WIZZ adding a new base?

Brexit is a catastrophe. I wish I wasn't in aviation.

Don't forget that ryan air was threatning to drop a grand total of 3 domestic routes because of brexit.

The media put a spin on this to make it sound like ryan air was flying 100's of intra uk routes.

And since the disaster vote on June 23rd, Cardiff Airport has added routes to Madrid, Guernsey, Berlin, Rome, London City, another operator to faro (ryanair) and Qatar Airways to Doha. What a disaster.

Ryanair also threatened to pull out of the UK entirely and to stop flights. Oh how we laughed!

Summa767 wrote:

sevenair wrote:

Yes. It's just terrible. End of the world stuff. All these airlines adding routes, aircraft. Not one has been removed.

But we know the rules: anything good, it's because we are still in. Anything bad, it's because we are leaving (ignoring the fact that we are still in EU).

Spain grew 0.8%. Following years in the doldrums. Could it be because of a surge in tourism to Spain predominately by Brits? I wonder how they'll do after we leave. After all we were told that we wouldn't be able to travel easily to the costas.

Erm, I have certainly not mentioned any "end of the world stuff". The UK has made a fool of itself and the Brits are clearly paying more for things.
Spain has actually grown a lot better than the UK for quite a few quarters. Despite the crisis suffered, their prospects are good as they have fantastic infrastructure: More Km of high speed train lines than even Germany. How many does the UK have?
Spain are already producing a lot more cars than the UK.
As for tourism, it has increased from all origins including the UK but as a proportion of the overall it has actually been sliding.

France Q1 GDP grew at the same rate of the UK. I suppose Brexit is to blame for that. Spain has done very well from the EU. Underused high speed rail, ghost airports, trams to nowhere etc. As a net contributor to the EU, things haven't been quite so good for the UK. And, as one of the few who bother committing our 2% to defence, there's simply less money to go around!

UltimoTiger777 wrote:

sevenair wrote:

Yes. It's just terrible. End of the world stuff. All these airlines adding routes, aircraft. Not one has been removed.

To be fair, here at Manchester we lost the United Airlines route to Washington and in addition to that, AA have made the New York & Chicago flights into seasonal ones (although Philadelphia is still all year round).

I know UA have also culled a bunch of other UK routes.

Gains from Virgin, Thomas Cook, Norwegian and also links via KEF on WOW Air. It's odd how these upguage and add whilst others cut. BA have also added routes and upgraded routes.

Please keep politics out here, otherwise thread will be locked.

sevenair wrote:

Brussels: +28%

Well we can expect this one to decline in future!

[*]

SQ22 wrote:

Please keep politics out here, otherwise thread will be locked.

With a thread title like this it was going to happen from the start.

Is the UK economy on a downward slope? No.

In the 29 quarters since the start of 1Q 2010 UK GDP has grown in all but two. It declined by 0.1 per cent in Q2 2012 and 0.2 per cent in Q4 of the same year. In all of the remaining 27 quarters it has grown. So statistically it is on an uphill slope. [Source: Office of National Statistics (ONC).]

One effect of this growth has been a steady uphill slope in the numbers of those over sixteen in work. As at 1Q 2009 that number was 29.013M. The latest figure from the ONC is 9.8 per cent higher at 31.844M. As a result the UK has, at 4.7 per cent, the second lowest unemployment rate to Germany (3.9 per cent) amongst the larger European economies. This is very much lower than that in France (10.0 per cent), Italy (11.7 per cent) and, indeed, Spain (18.75 per cent).

So looking to the future we can hope to see economies like that of Spain continue to recover. Their large pool of those looking for work would then turn into an asset.

Is there any evidence of any general reduction in UK air travel? No.

It is very dangerous to come to any conclusion on short term data. As others have pointed out this year Easter fell in April, last year in March. So if the market were level we would expect the numbers of leisure passengers to be lower and for business passengers to be higher in March 2017 than in March 2016

If we compare a single month's passenger numbers with the previous month it is worth remembering that the total number of days in consecutive months vary. So this year March had 10,7 per cent more days than did February. Also even if consecutive months have the same number of days, the number of potential working days will likely vary. So this year July has 21 days Monday through Friday while August has 9.5 per cent more at 23. Such variations will likely impact the numbers of both leisure and business travellers when everything else is constant. But everything else is rarely the same.

Finally there is the seasonal impact that results in temporary changes to airlines' timetables. For example BA reduces the frequency of some long-haul flights in February but usually increases capacity significantly on the CPT route in early January

If anything, I'd guess that London is experiencing a pre-brexit boom. Lots of billable hours for firms working on bailout related changes. I wouldn't expect to see economic impact until the exit negotiations are further along and the banks and insurance companies have made their plans more definitive. Certainly most banks and insurers are looking at other cities for Euro operations - Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dublin. Vienna and more are likely destinations, it that's quite a bit into the future.

Quote from Gatwick Airport CEO, Stewart Windgate, in article titled 'Booming Gatwick' in next month's (June '17) 'Airliner World':

'Gatwick is booming. We have just reached 44 million passengers a year - a world record for a single runway airport - and a mark that some predicted we would not hit until 2035.

Our passengers continue to show confidence in foreign travel particularly to the growing number of long-haul destinations Gatwick now serves. We launched 20 new long-haul routes last year alone and even more this summer, including to Seattle, Denver and Xian - our third destination in China - with our Hong Kong service going daily.'

He goes on to reveal that LGW's March passenger numbers were 3.3 million, 8.4 per cent higher than those of March 2016. This was '. . . the forty-ninth consecutive month to show growth . . .' [over the same month in the previous year?]. Of course this is despite many considering LGW to be primarily a leisure airport and Easter travellers having flown in March last year but in April this.

Facts only.You have started a thread,clearly you want a debate.The silence is deafening....

Summa767 wrote:

It was a question of time - The British currency fell against the US dollar to a 30 year low and is still below that level. That translates into higher costs for people and companies that have a downstream effect.

That is actually a good thing, not a bad thing! It encourages manufacturing in the UK and discourages imports. It encourages inbound tourism and discourages Brits from spending their money abroad. It makes UK services firms, consultancies, ad agencies more competitive on the World market.

Headlines include:

"UK car manufacturing at record levels"
"Exports by UK manufacturers have risen to the highest level in more than three years, while expectations for growth are at a more than two-decade high"

My company exports about 98% of its production, our profits and cashflow are up significantly year-year.
I'm failing to see how this is (a) bad and (b) has a negative effect on air travel.

parapente wrote:

Facts only.You have started a thread,clearly you want a debate.The silence is deafening....

Not to worry, I am enjoying the ride!

I clearly stated in the opening section of this thread, that air travel statistics are a fairly accurate barometer of economic health.
And that the latest CAA air passenger traffic figures for March 2017 indicate that the UK economy MIGHT BE on a downward slope.

So I didn't say the UK economy IS on a downward slope, but I asked whether we are possibly seeing the initial signs of a changing wind, a turn in the dynamics.

In economic analyses this is quite a normal thing to call.
For example, take today's report by the BBC that the HALIFAX reports: 'UK House prices are falling'.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39842715
House prices are a very similar economic barometer used to gauge the health of an economy. No big argument there.

As a regular monthly observer of the CAA's air travel statistics, one does note a difference between the regular monthy growth figures and a sudden rather sharp turn to negative growth.
Responding by quoting growth in traffic to Spanish holiday destinations as an illustration of the perfect health of the UK economy makes me smile.
As noted by others, sales of Spanish holidays are booming as people opt out of holidays in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia.
Also....the large set of negative March figures CAN NOT only be explained by just EASTER falling in April.
My question was simple......are we witnessing the first signs of change?

Economists are continously looking for signs of change, a first month of different figures...a change in the dynamics of reported statistics.
That is what is this thread is all about.
Although I do enjoy reading some of the responses.

So are house prices falling Yes or No, and..... is the Halifax right or not?

Please continue the discussion.

A good indicator would be if airlines are letting staff go, doesn't seem to be the case.

Are we witnessing a downturn? The only sensible answer is maybe/maybe not. Economic indicators are something that can only realistically be viewed in the rear view mirror.

factsonly wrote:

parapente wrote:

Facts only.You have started a thread,clearly you want a debate.The silence is deafening....

Not to worry, I am enjoying the ride!

I clearly stated in the opening section of this thread, that air travel statistics are a fairly accurate barometer of economic health.
And that the latest CAA air passenger traffic figures for March 2017 indicate that the UK economy MIGHT BE on a downward slope.

So I didn't say the UK economy IS on a downward slope, but I asked whether we are possibly seeing the initial signs of a changing wind, a turn in the dynamics.

In economic analyses this is quite a normal thing to call.
For example, take today's report by the BBC that the HALIFAX reports: 'UK House prices are falling'.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39842715
House prices are a very similar economic barometer used to gauge the health of an economy. No big argument there.

As a regular monthly observer of the CAA's air travel statistics, one does note a difference between the regular monthy growth figures and a sudden rather sharp turn to negative growth.
Responding by quoting growth in traffic to Spanish holiday destinations as an illustration of the perfect health of the UK economy makes me smile.
As noted by others, sales of Spanish holidays are booming as people opt out of holidays in Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia.
Also....the large set of negative March figures CAN NOT only be explained by just EASTER falling in April.
My question was simple......are we witnessing the first signs of change?

Economists are continously looking for signs of change, a first month of different figures...a change in the dynamics of reported statistics.
That is what is this thread is all about.
Although I do enjoy reading some of the responses.

So are house prices falling Yes or No, and..... is the Halifax right or not?

Please continue the discussion.

This is by no means the 1st time you have posted a set of statistics seemingly claiming that air travel in the UK is in a steep decline, the simple answer is that in the short term these figures are virtually worthless, especially on routes with relatively few passengers. Easter and the weather will have had quite an impact, especially with most schools having the holiday entirely before Easter, making it more difficult utilise.
As to house prices, in the UK they have been astronomical for years, if any Government ever succeeds in their policy of building to meet demand, prices will naturally stagnate/fall. I doubt anyone is getting too worked up over a 0.2% drop in 3 months especially as the report of this clearly states that they have increased in value to the point of being unaffordable.