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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 1946.PDF
TOP SO AIRLINES IMu i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Airline United Airlines American Airlines Delta Air Lines Northwest Airlines Continental Airlines US Airways Trans World Airlines Southwest Airlines Air Canada Canadian Airlines Int. America West Airlines Alaska Airlines TOTALS US ONLY TOTALS Traffic (RPK) (millions) 187.765 168.478 151.130 110.440 67,440 62,659 43.622 43,577 30,891 25,977 24.652 15.818 916.633 859.765 Capacity change change 4.4% 1.7% 10.4% 9.8% 4.7% 3.5% 8.9% 16.1% 14.6% 4.6% 15.1% 14.5% 6.7% 6.5% NOTE: Unit costs exclude charges (or employee shar&ownership schemes 2.7% -1.6% 2.7% 7.4% 0.8% -2.2% 7.1% 12.6% 10.7% 1.7% 11.3% 7.3% 3.0% 2.8% Load fac (%l 71.7% 68.5% 70.2% 73.1% 68.1% 68.5% 66.8% 66.5% 65.2% 71.0% 70.9% 66.0% 69.7% 69.9% tors change 1.1 2.2 4.9 1.6 2.5 3.8 1.1 2.0 2.2 1.9 2.3 4.1 2.5 2.8 and restructuring. Continental figures for all jet-airliner operations Pass c/RPK 7.68 8.10 7.94 7.79 8.14 10.85 7.05 7.50 8.02 6.39 6.64 7.25 7.97 8.02 RPK= revenue nger yields change 4.7% 0.5% 4.6% 0.9% 4.7% 4.8% -0.4% 2.0% -2.2% -5.1% -2.0% 0.7% 0.9% 1.1% passenger kilometres lmile Seat c/ASK 5.54 5.54 5.37 5.46 5.45 7.89 5.44 4.66 6.11 5.42 4.62 5.03 5.60 5.59 1.609km costs change 4.2% 4.0% 0.3% 1.4% 4.9% 11.3% 7.9% 6.1% 0.0% -1.2% 4.2% 5.1% 3.7% 3.9% beginning to take advantage of freer world mar kets to build around themselves powerful glob al networks. There already seems to be some evidence of a widening gap between die large and increasingly profitable carriers at the top and the smaller flag carriers, which are having to consider their traditional stand-alone role. The major US carriers, resurgent from their long bout of restructuring and cost-cutting, are clearly helping to set the industry pace. American, Delta, Northwest, United and the perennially profitable Southwest are turned in double digit operating margins for 1996 - the sort of level required by the whole industry if it is to appeal to investors. Continental, too, is up with the leaders, after its dramatic transformation from one of the poor relations, and US Airways is not far behind. Of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy survivors, only Trans World Airways (TWA) continues to languish. The only other major airline group outside the Asia/Pacific region which can report similar margins is, perhaps unsurprisingly, BA. With restructuring charges now mostly out of the way, net profits also flowed in earnest dur ing 1996. Excluding Delta's restructuring charge, the top ten US carriers made collective net profits of $3.3 billion, even after accounting for TWA's losses. The result conies largely as a result of a buoyant US economy and a roaring air market. Even a mid-year rise in fuel prices and re-imposition of the US federal ticket tax appears to have failed to stem the flow of profits. The 1996 figures hold their warnings for die top ten US carriers. Unit costs rose by close to 4%, partially because of fuel prices, but also because of a wave of expansion. Yields grew, but by only around 1 %, and have come under pres sure through the rise of the dollar, especially against the Japanese yen. Early figures for the first six months of this year show that traffic is still growing steadily. Profits remain largely on track with further improvements still to come from carriers such as US Airways. EUROPEAN IMPROVEMENT Europe, too, should see some better results this year after a dismal performance in 1996. The Association of European Airlines (AEA) esti mates that its members dipped back into the red, making a small collective operating loss of around $100 million on their main internation al routes. This compares to a profit of just under SI billion in 1995. The industry was badly hit by the fuel increase, which the AEA estimates added $700 million to costs, and whittled away what should have been a significant improvement in unit costs to only 0.5%. At the same time, yields fell. Passenger yields were down by around 2.3 % in local currency terms - otherwise the fall was over 4%, given the strength of the US dollar. Heavy discounting in the increasingly com petitive European air market drove down fare levels. Much of the region, including France and Germany, were suffering from a mini eco nomic downturn as governments tightened finances ahead of the single European currency. Nevertheless, traffic continued to forge ahead. International air traffic increased by nearly 8% and load factors stayed above 70%. The traffic growth has been running even high er over the first few months of this year and, with economies back on track, there seems to be a good chance of majors such as KLM and Lufthansa recovering their poise in 1997. After three years of painful restructuring, Europe's state-owned flag carriers are also beginning to re-emerge from their losses. Iberia turned in a net profit, as did Groupe Air France, although continuing losses at its strike-hit regional sister company Air France Europe dragged the group result into the red. • MM i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Airline British Airways Lufthansa Air France KLM Alitalia Iberia Swissair SAS Turkish Airlines Sabena Finnair Olympic Airways TAP-Air Portugal Austrian Airlines Aer Lingus TOTAL Scheduled passenger traffic Capacity Load factors RPK (millions) change change 1996 change 100,559 7.1% 7.7% 73.1% -0.4 63,260 2.7% 4.3% 68.8% -1.1 57,472 16.1% 8.6% 75.8% 4.9 48,857 9.9% 8.6% 75.1% 0.9 34,556 8.8% 9.7% 68.9% -0.5 25,920 8.9% 8.7% 70.1% 0.1 21,230 7.6% 7.3% 64.7% 0.2 19.487 5.3% 7.7% 63.6% -1.5 10,947 15.5% 8.2% 67.2% 4.3 9,011 4.5% 11.6% 59.0% -4.0 8,573 2.8% 3.9% 65.6% -0.7 8,533 7.4% 8.2% 65.4% -0.5 7,978 3.4% 7.2% 66.5% -2.5 5,438 10.7% 12.5% 58.7% -0.9 5,126 10.0% 8.1% 73.4% 1.3 426.949 8.1% 7.7% 70.3% 0.3 Yields change 1.3% 4.4% -2.6% 0.0% -7.5% 5.0% -2.0% -3.6% -4.1%** NOTES: Figures for parent airlines only, excluding group subsidiaries. All traffic figures for calendar year 1996 as reported to the Association of European Yield figures for financial years - Air France, BA, KLM and Finnair report to March 1997. Total yield from AEA international services only. RPK = revenue p * Employment figures from IATA World Air Transport Statistics. • * Total yield is for AEA members calendar 1996. It was -2.3% in local currency terms. Cargo traffic 1996 change 3.494 6.019 4,656 3.704 1,457 732 1,623 617 207 339 237 119 210 128 102 23,643 Airlines, assenger kilometre. 7.5% 3.2% 5.4% 2.8% -0.7% 7.8% 7.6% 36.3% -3.5% -18.4% 12.1% 1.5% 8.8% 4.3% -4.6% 4.7% Employee 31/12796 53.492 34,167 38,542 25,941 16,850 22,427 16,617 18,880 8,668 10.764 8,214 8,625 7,457 4,072 5,231 279,947 numbers* change 3.4% 2.8% 3.3% 2.5% -6.3% -5.0% -6.3% 7.6% 1.2% 1.0% 10.8% -5.6% -9.4% 5.4% 3.9% 0.9% 40 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 30 July - 5 August 1997
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