No-frills “to grow 40 per cent a year”
No-frills airlines will carry around 80 million passengers in Europe in 2004, up from 47m last year, according to Wolfgang Kurth, president of the European Low Fares Airlines Association.
The no-frills operators were forecast to capture around 18 per cent of the market on intra-European routes this year, as they both opened new routes and took market share from the traditional network airlines.
Mr Kurth, chief executive of Hapag Lloyd-Express (HLX) the German low cost carrier and a subsidiary of Tui, Europe’s largest tour operator, said that the recent growth rate of around 40 per cent a year in passenger volumes was expected to continue for at least another couple of years.
He played down recent warnings from Ryanair and EasyJet of a looming “bloodbath” in the sector in the face of a fierce price war and serious overcapacity.
There were currently as many as 67 no-frills carriers operating in Europe, said Mr Kurth, and while a process of consolidation was eventually inevitable, for the moment new carriers were still entering the market to replace those that collapsed.
Report by Tim Gillett, News From Abroad Ltd
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