Revenue passenger-kilometres went up 6.5% for Iberia(RPK) while capacity -measured in available seat-kilometres(ASK) – increased by 6.0%. Consequently, the load factor improved by 0.4 points, standing at 77.7%…
Revenue passenger-kilometres went up 6.5% for Iberia(RPK) while capacity -measured in available seat-kilometres(ASK) – increased by 6.0%. Consequently, the load factor improved by 0.4 points, standing at 77.7%. The number of passengers carried grew by 3.3%, 5.2% on domestic flights and 0.8% on international flights.
The long haul network had a capacity increase of 8.4% in ASK while RPK were up 7.5%, thus, the load factor reached 82.5%, dropping by 0.7 points. The change in operations to Central America (more direct flights from Spain and closing of the Miami hub from October 2004) explains to a great extent the increase of 11.6% in the average stage length and the decrease of 3.7% in the number of passengers with respect to the previous year. In June 2005 the mix improved and the new Business Plus was positively appreciated by customers.
In the Mid Atlantic, the notable growth of capacity in certain destinations, especially in Cuba, and Mexico, and the change in operations that has already been mentioned led to a 21.0% increase of capacity, while traffic rose by 20.7% and load factor stood at 83.0%
In the North Atlantic, the load factor improved by 2.7 points, to 90.3%; capacity and traffic decreased by 22.0% and 19.6% respectively, due to the reduction of a daily frequency between Madrid and Miami as a consequence of the closing of the Miami hub. If we aggregate the North and the Mid Atlantic (in order to eliminate the distortion that the aforementioned restructuring provokes in both markets separately) traffic rose by 5.8%, against a 5.7% increase in capacity; consequently, the load factor improved slightly to 84.9%.
In the South Atlantic, capacity grew 16.9%, a lower increase than in previous months. The demand performance has been variable in the different markets growing in total 13.4% and reaching a load factor of 77.5%.
In the international medium haul, the load factor improved by 1.5 points compared to the previous year, reaching 69.8 %. RPK rose by 6.4% and ASK increased by 4.1%. European traffic grew by 4.1%, against a capacity increase of 1.9%, thus, the load factor improved by 1.4 points, to 70.6%. Middle East and Africa continued to show strong increases in traffic (33.6%) that exceeded the capacity (25.6%) leading to a load factor improvement of 3.8 points, to 63.4%.
In the Domestic market, where competition has intensified, traffic grew by 4.5% while capacity increased by 3.2% and load factor improved 1.0 percentage points reaching 76.5%.
Traffic went up 2.5% in flights between the mainland and the Canary Islands while capacity decreased slightly with respect to last year and load factor went up 2.1 points to 82.2%. In the rest of the domestic flights demand was 5.7% more than in June 2004 and capacity grew 5.0%. Load factor improved 0.5 points reaching 73.5%
In the second quarter traffic increased in proportion to capacity, 7.5% with respect to last year. Load factor remained stable at 75.4% despite the different Easter calendar (March in 2005 and April in 2004)
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
