Allplane featured in the media

The Spanish air travel market is one of the favourites of this blog, as so much is going on there at the moment. The effects of the economic crisis are having a deep impact on this sector and, therefore, it does not come as a surprise that the media are often reporting on aviation related issues, and it is in this context that Allplane got featured twice recently...

I would like to thank Companias Low Cost for presenting Allplane to its readership. Companias Low Cost, a highly recommended blog, provides an overview, in Spanish, of the news in the low cost air travel sector. I am also very grateful to David Rodriguez for writing some nice words about Allplane in the Catalan newspaper Ara. If you happen to understand Catalan I recommend reading his regular column on this newspaper about infrastructure and transportation issues!

By the way, and in connection with this latest article, the future of Lleida airport is again under discussion after Vueling and Pyrenair have canceled their routes to Barcelona, Vigo and Madrid. The Catalan government is going to draft a strategic plan with a view to guaranteeing the economic viability of this facility...something worth following up!

Ryanair teaching Belgian students a lesson in packing

An incident between Ryanair and some of its customers is hardly any news, the latest one involved a group of Belgian students that were removed from the plane that was going to take them from Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, to Charleroi, Belgium, after having a row about hand-lugagge fees.

Setting aside the circumstances of the incident, these students have inadvertently provided the material for Ryanair's latest PR stunt. I have to admit I am quite impressed by the packing ability of this guy, but it is true that you can really fit A LOT on one of this standard-size Ryanair-approved suitcases...I am talking from my own experience...!

Too much of a good thing? Brazil's airports are suffering a growth crisis

Images: Wikipedia

One of the countries that has been experiencing sustained growth in the last decade is Brazil. The country's magnificent rates of growth have had its reflection on the aviation sector too and the number of air passengers in Brazil has more than doubled in less than a decade, from 71 million in 2003 to 154 million in 2010. This growth has taken place amidst a total transformation of Brazil's airline sector, that included the demise of what used Brazil's traditionally two largest carriers, Vasp, in 2005, and Varig, that in 2006 got absorbed by GOL, one of the entrants that have managed to take a significant part of Brazil's market. The emergence of Star-Alliance member TAM and low cost carriers GOL and Azul (founded by David Neeleman of JetBlue fame, by the way it is not a coincidence that "azul" is Portuguese for "blue"!) have more than made up for the disappearance of the traditional carriers.

But all this growth is reaching a bottleneck: the country's airport infrastructure. Capacity at Brazil's airports hasn't expanded quite as fast as traffic and the country may be heading for serious turbulence if it does not upgrade its infrastructure before the upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games, due to take place in 2014 and 2016 respectively. There are serious doubts about the capacity of Infraero, the government institution with links to the military, that manages most Brazilian airports, to deliver in the face of such such an important challenge. We will see whether a solution is found, either in the form of more public investment or through the privatisation of some of these airports. In any case, I am sure this is a problem that many countries would like to have right now (just thinking about our series on Spain's empty airports), and a reminder that not everyone is currently in crisis!

The legendary air shuttle Barcelona-Madrid: the "Puente Aéreo"

Early morning at Madrid airport, a familiar view for many Barcelona-based passengers

If in my previous post I explained how the Spanish airport authority is using replicas of some venerable aircraft to advertise her state-of-the-art facilities and, for this post, we are not leaving Spain yet, because during my recent trip to Madrid I had the chance to experience another of Spanish aviation's legendary institutions: Iberia's "Puente Aéreo" (the Air Shuttle Barcelona-Madrid).

For those who are not aware, Barcelona-Madrid happens to be the air route with most traffic in the Europe, with nearly 3 million passengers per year and around 70 daily frequencies in each direction.

A large share of this traffic went through Iberia's "Puente Aéreo", an air-shuttle that was conceived as a commuter service, where you do not need a previous booking, you just show up at the airport and get on the next available flight. If a plane is full another one departs shortly after, with frequencies at peak hours could rival those of overground public transportation, every 15 minutes or so. The idea is to provide plenty of flexibility and short waiting times at airport.

The "Puente Aéreo" has its own brand identity and fare structure, separate from Iberia's other flights, even when they are doing the same route (around half of Iberia's frequencies on the Barcelona-Madrid route correspond to the "Puente Aéreo" service, with the rest being regular flights that require reservation.

The "Puente Aéreo" has been a sort of second home to generations of businessmen and politicians, ready to pay for all this flexibility and convenience and it is no wonder that, for years, it has been Iberia's most profitable route (in a way, the "Puente Aéreo" is to Iberia what LHR-New York is to British Airways)

However, a number of changes that have affected the competitive environment in which the "Puente Aéreo" was born and developed.

The first one was the liberalization of European skies. As soon as European skies opened up, new entrants Spanair and Air Europa decided to give it a try. The route quickly became a mainstay of Spanair, that now boasts 8 daily frequencies on the route and has branded the service with a similar name, making use of the concept of "air bridge", although for legal reasons it can not call it "Puente Aéreo", so it has "Puente a Barcelona/Pont a Madrid" instead. Next came low cost airlines, with Vueling entering the fray, it has now 11 daily frequencies. Surprisingly Easyjet chose not to compete on the route in spite of having a base in Madrid. Despite all this new competition, Iberia's market share on the Barcelona-Madrid air market remains at around 45%

The completion of the high-speed railway between Barcelona and Madrid has had a stronger effect on the route as it has emerged as a real alternative in terms of frequency and comfort for business travellers, taking half of the market on the Barcelona-Madrid corridor. It has forced Iberia to reduce capacity, maintaining frequencies but deploying smaller aircraft. However, the 600 kilometers between Barcelona and Madrid are really at the edge of what is considered to be a competitive distance range for high-speed railways and the airplane remains competitive, even for origin-destination traffic. Competitive pricing and the high volume of Catalan transit passengers at MAD have helped the airplane hold its ground on this route.

I am wondering what will happen the moment Ryanair starts flying between the two cities, it now has a base in both so it sounds like a logical next step...but I think the other airlines operating the route will feel the pinch, as they rely on a more price-conscious type of travele. My guess is that the "Puente Aereo" itself will be relatively inmune.

Aena goes retro to present its new airport investments in Spain

I was at Madrid's Fitur a few days ago. This is one of the largest tourism trade shows in the World and, as you might imagine, airlines and other aviation-related operators had a strong presence. Aena, the Spanish airport operator had a huge stand where it showcased their current and projected investments at some Spanish airports, such as Santiago de Compostela (SCQ) and Alicante (ALC). The new and projected terminals at these airports where presented with a miniature scale model, but what amazed me the most is the aircraft models they chose to fill them up...a joy for aviation history enthusiasts!...I do not believe we are going to see Lufthansa's Boeing 727 and TWA's Lockheed Superconstellation at Spanish airports anytime soon, though!


Is good old Connie making a comeback? ask Aena!


A nice retro aircraft model, a Lufthansa Boeing 727

When a direct flight is not really a direct flight?

I was recently at Barcelona airport and something caught my attention: in all airport screens, and also in the airport guide, I could see announced some flights operated by Iberia to destinations in North and South America (New York, Bogota, Mexico...), nothing unusual if I did not know that Iberia does not currently operate long distance flights at Barcelona (it is opening BCN-GRU and BCN-MIA in March). Passengers on these flights need to change planes at Madrid, however, nothing in the flight information suggested that was a non-direct flight.


Can you tell which of these flights are really direct?

Many airlines do code-sharing on certain routes, so you might end up flying with a different company to that you have booked the flight with, but I haven't come across (yet) a case where an airline markets a non-direct route, involving a stopover an a plane change, as a direct flight (if you do, please let me know!).

For example, in this snapshot from Aena's website (Spain's airport operator) you can find a Barcelona-New York (JFK) flight operated by Iberia, however when looking into the details this happens to be a non-direct flight.


Aena's website shows two Iberia flights BCN-JFK, the first one is a code-shared American Airlines direct flight, the second one does not really show a direct flight, but an indirect route to the Big Apple

It turns out that Iberia has been marketing for years something called "Catalunya-America": these are, basically, some flights specially timed to provide connections, via Madrid, to some American destinations. The way these flights are marketed has sometimes led people to believe those were really direct flights and it has been a source of misunderstandings.

From what I have seen so far on this case, I found the information provided by Iberia on these flights to be a bit misleading to the uninformed passenger. Despite the fact that they might be well coordinated to enable connections, these are still non-direct flights and this should be made more clear when marketing them.

What I am wondering is why Iberia can present these non-direct flights with their own codes as proper direct flight. What prevents Lufthansa, for example, from showing a Barcelona-Beijing or Barcelona-Bangkok flight, that would in all cases involve a Frankfurt or Munich stopover, as direct flights?

If someone could clarify these points I would be grateful...

The best airline meal in a long time

A meal on Brussels airlines

One of the best airline meals I have had recently (I mean, on Economy class of course), on board Brussels Airlines flight from Moscow Domodedovo (DME) to Brussels (BRU). Very simple and unpretentious, but nice and filling. You will see in the picture that it was not a big dish, but rather an ecclectic collection of ingredients: Feta-style cheese and pasta salad, bread and butter, salty crackers, a cake and, of course, being on a Belgian plane the piece of chocolate could not be missed. No dodgy sauces trying to mask ingredients of doubious provenance or dull overcooked vegetables, just the sort of food that brightens your journey...

It's a pitty that on the successive flight to Barcelona, despite flying the same airline only paying "a la carte" menu was on offer...