In the following, we will take a closer look at the route expansion of Ryanair for this summer’s schedule (Ryanair announces flights to seven new destinations TMID, 11 January).

Turin

The home of Fiat motors has been linked in the last few summers by Air Malta. However it has to be asked if these routes were actually financially sustainable, and if the timings – aimed primarily at weekend trippers – meant that the other sector tended to be more like fun-run (semi-empty/positioning) loads. The establishment of a flight from Turin will certainly mean some pressure on Milan, which is not that far away by motorway. Air Malta links the city airport at Linate, while Easyjet flies from Malpensa, the big airport miles from anywhere that was formerly linked by Air Malta. However, makes more sense to support a Turin flight than one to Genoa.

Oslo and Malmö

With its routes to Malmö (Sweden) and Oslo (Norway), Ryanair might be aiming to attack low-cost Scandinavian airline Norwegian. This airline, which evolved from a small regional firm called Busy Bee, has been operating routes from Oslo and Copenhagen (where it has been competing with a charter flight operated by JetTime) to Malta. Copenhagen and Malmö are separated by a toll bridge across the Öresund, with Copenhagen airport just 20kms from the city of Malmö. So this could be considered quite a parallel flight, except for the hinterland of Malmö.

Oslo was an Air Malta scheduled destination since the route expansion of the early 1990s. In addition, it ran sporadic summer charters from Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim. Concurrently, Oslo saw charters run by SAS or Braathens (now also SAS). During the summer of 2004, Oslo had two weekly scheduled flight pairs with Air Malta, plus two Air Malta charter flight pairs, meaning four Air Malta non-stops, plus half an SAS flight (combined with Malmö). It began to get unstable when SAS-Snowflake – a now defunct low-cost airline project of SAS – was opened.

In 2008 there were two weekly SAS summer runs, while the remaining two Air Malta almost year-round scheduled flights were replaced by two Norwegian flights. Certainly, the high cost of fuel was one of the reasons behind the company deciding to drop Oslo. Even so, it is debatable whether this was a particularly good idea, as revenues should have been better than from some maybe (slightly) shorter but definitely more unconventional routes.

Traditionally, December and January saw basically zero flights, with Air Malta maintaining a service during the other months. This has not been the case with the Scandinavian carriers.

It would be nice if the non-stop connection to the wider Oslo area (the airports Ryanair sells as Oslo are two military/civilian mixed airports about 100km south of Oslo) could also be kept open during the winter months with Ryanair, at least to the same extent as with Air Malta. Ryanair was actually the first airline to keep the Stockholm (Skavsta, near Nykoping, 100km south of Stockholm) link open during deepest winter – although it must have been receiving subsidies for the new routes, unlike Air Malta. As has been pointed out before, there is more off-peak potential in Scandinavia, given the darkness and weather during that period.

Wroclaw and Kaunas

The Wroclaw route had already been announced before (see TMIS, 23 October 2011), and definitely is a welcome development. Kaunas in Lithuania is an area that is currently not served. It is challenging, given the current economic scenario in Lithuania and the high cost of trips due to the distances involved. What we also certainly need is affordable accommodation for the mass market. Smaller load segments could be seasonal low-cost EU staff for Maltese employers, and some outgoing traffic with Maltese visitors flying north during the hot days of summer. Kaunas could be a seasonal service. For further background on both routes, see an item by the writer in TMIS of 27 January 2008.

London-Stansted and Bournemouth

I have already discussed the issue of a Ryanair Stansted link in detail in TMIS of 25 September 2011. The carrier that will be affected by a Stansted flight is Ryanair itself at Luton, the nearest airport (about 40km). Heathrow and Gatwick, linked by Air Malta, cover other sectors of London and particularly when it comes to the area outside Greater London. Where there could definitely be an effect is on the Maltese to the UK market. However, this might be compensated for by UK leisure carriers further winding down their Malta flights, thus cushioning the overcapacity issue. What might also suffer is the Air Malta Norwich charter, if it was intended to maintain it. Stansted certainly has less effect on Air Malta compared to, say, subsidised flights from Charleroi (Brussels) or Beauvais (Paris) or Hahn (Frankfurt) or Bratislava (Vienna), to name some potential targets.

We should however not forget that Stansted is the airport that was originally linked by Air Malta (with their Fare4U no-frills product) and Britishjet, only to be ousted by Ryanair’s subsidised parallel flight from Luton (London had been declared a “new, underserved area” back then). However, it is a pragmatic solution in the current scenario, given that Ryanair will probably have wanted such a financially more interesting route in compensation – sort of – for some risky or cost-intense (or both) ones.

It is positive that the Bournemouth route has been resumed after a break as it gives customers from southern England a choice of airport in their area. I pointed out this route as a possibility back in TMIS of both 23 November and 21 December 2008. It should be noted that, back then, Air Malta preferred to pump enormous sums of money into Portsmouth Football Club instead of operating the route from Southampton, the main airport of the area, which could have been ideal for an A319 and kept competitors at bay. Good fares, good network, good code-share agreements and cooperating with destination advertising/marketing (after all, the only reason why people fly Air Malta is to go to Malta), are certainly a better advertisement than money paid to football players and starlets.

Generally, the UK routes policy of the national carrier in recent years had left loopholes open for those wanting to install subsidised parallel flights. For example, it remains incomprehensible how one could have let Scotland fall, while it should have been more than clear that, sooner or later, an installed flight from Edinburgh would come if one would not block the airport. Even with the fuel issue in mind, surely the more unattractive route-frequency-aircraft combinations were (or had to be?) maintained?

The frequencies of all the new Ryanair routes are generally realistic. One should not make the simple equation between abstract capacity and growth, but should understand that there needs to be a differentiated routes structure with the correct sized capacity, rather than over-capacity in some markets, to receive the best and sustainable results and to offset market risks.

Unlike a number of Malta’s Ryanair developments in the pre-2009 period, more care has been taken to increase Ryanair traffic but with a less negative impact on Air Malta. The spending on route subsidies for genuinely new routes yields way more for Malta at a lower per arrival expenditure than certain image activities of very unclear returns on investment. What should be avoided are/were subsidised flights operating in parallel with unsubsidised Air Malta ones. A sustainable Air Malta, operating in a level-playing-field market with the genuine support of all stakeholders is what everyone should appreciate. Since 1974, the airline has been the carrier on which Malta – as a small peripheral island state dependent on tourism and international trade links that has achieved what it has against all the odds, no doubt to a significant extent due to the national carrier – could always rely.