Europe routes get more competitive

Qantas’ share of passenger traffic on the Australia-Europe routes has slipped from 34.2 per cent to 31.7 per cent between 1994 and 2009, according to DOI figures included in the ACCC’s recent assessment of the airline’s Joint Services Agreement with British Airways.

The same set of numbers shows that BA’s share has dropped from 7.5 per cent to 4.8 per cent.

Winners on the Europe routes include Singapore Airlines (up 2.7 per cent), Cathay Pacific (up 3.5 per cent) and Malaysia Airlines (up 0.5 per cent).

The big mover however was Emirates (up 15.7 per cent), while newcomers to the market, Virgin Atlantic and Etihad, achieved shares of 1.9 per cent and 3.2 per cent respectively.

And those shares are part of a 4.76 million pax market in 2009, up from 2.48 million in 1994, despite last year’s gloom and doom.

The UK remains the market dominator, with around half of all passengers entering Europe via one of that country’s gateways. And that percentage has remained fairly consistent through the 16-year period.

The ACCC ruled in favour of an extension of the two airlines’ JSA on the basis of these numbers, ruling that the Australia-Europe routes are now far more competitive than they were when the JSA first came into effect.