DATA: What are the Fastest Growing Airlines in the Transatlantic Market?

Ahead of this year's Routes Americas forum, Routesonline is providing a snapshot on the leading airlines and airports and most used aircraft types across the region. Here we look closely at air capacity in the Transatlantic market between USA and Europe.

The data is all supplied by OAG Aviation using its OAG Schedules Analyser tool.

Scheduled Transatlantic Air Capacity (2005 - 2014)

Top Ten Airlines in the Transatlantic Market (2014)

The data for 2014 shows that three airlines - supporting the big three global airline alliances -dominated the Transatlantic market by seat availability. Leading the way was SkyTeam’s Delta Air Lines with 9.76 million available seats (11.7 per cent share), followed closely by British Airways, part of Oneworld, with 9.70 million seats (also a 11.7 per cent share) and then Star Alliance member United Airlines with 9.55 million seats (11.5 per cent share).

Among these three airlines it was British Airways that boosted its Transatlantic capacity the most in the past year with capacity up 6.8 per cent versus 2013, ranking it as the tenth fastest growing of the top 20 airlines across the Atlantic.

The data comparison between 2013 and 2014 shows how Norwegian has boosted its long-haul, low-cost activities in this market since its initial debut in 2013 with capacity rising 633.9 per cent year-on-year. Double-digit Transatlantic capacity growth was also recorded by Icelandair (up 22.0 per cent), Turkish Airlines (up 19.1 per cent), Aer Lingus (up 18.9 per cent) and Air Canada (up 10.8 per cent) in 2014 versus 2013.

Fastest Growing Airlines in the Transatlantic Market (2010-2014)

Looking at Transatlantic capacity data across a five year period, it is Turkish Airlines that has grown capacity by the biggest margin, although it is joined by airberlin in trebling its available seats and Icelandair, which more than doubled capacity in this market across the period. Turkish Airlines has seen its Transatlantic capacity increase 220.4 per cent, while airberlin grew 204.4 per cent and Icelandair 119.3 per cent.

Among the US carriers, United Airlines shows the largest growth (56.6 per cent) thanks to its merger with Continental Airlines, while US Airways, now part of American Airlines, also showing a strong performance with capacity rising 17.7 per cent.

Looking across a ten year period and comparing Transatlantic capacity in 2014 versus 2005 the rise of Turkish Airlines is even more pronounced with available seats increasing a massive 633.9 per cent across the period, an average annual growth rate of over 70 per cent. Across this period both Icelandair and United Airlines have more than doubled capacity, while leisure carrier Air Transat (growth of 95.6 per cent) separates these from Europe’s flag carriers and the other US majors.

Scheduled Transatlantic Capacity by Aircraft Type

The chart below shows which aircraft types were most prevalent in the Transatlantic market during 2014. The schedule data shows the Airbus A330-300 (333) is the most widely used aircraft type in this market with a 14.0 per cent share of available seats with overall network capacity up 4.4 per cent between 2013 and 2014 from 11.12 million seats to 11.62 million seats.

The second most utilised aircraft type in the Transatlantic market is the Boeing 747-400 (744) with a 12.7 per cent share, while third most widely operated by network capacity is the Boeing 777 (777) with a 9.6 per cent share.

The biggest rises in annual capacity among the top ten aircraft types were recorded by the Boeing 767-400 (764) with a 81.4 per cent rise in available domestic seats in 2014 versus 2013 and the Boeing 777-300ER (77W) with a 34.8 per cent rise. The largest decline in annual capacity was recorded by the Boeing 767-300ER (763) with a fall of 6.9 per cent versus 2013.