Civil Aviation Authority has prepared statistics on air traffic and analysis of the aviation market in the second quarter of 2015. In the second quarter of 2015, the market has continued the positive trends of previous periods. In the early months of summer season there has been increase of the number of passengers and the number of operations, as well as the load factor. As a result of all these indicators increased during last six months. The strong growth has been clearly seen in the case of regular air traffic.
Positive trends also can be seen on the market for charter flights, but the increase was not as large as in the previous quarter. Significant increases were recorded by LCC carriers which were the main drivers of growth in Polish airports. It should also be pointed out that in contrast to the first quarter, in the second quarter no airport recorded a negative growth in traffic. Passenger air traffic in Poland in the second quarter of 2015 increased by 14%, compared to the same period of 2014. In the first half of the year the increase level reached 15%. Good results in passenger traffic were observed even despite of a lower growth of the number of operations (+7%) in the second quarter and more than 9% growth throughout the first half of the year.
At that time also the average number of passengers per operation has increased. (111 passengers in the second quarter and 103 in the entire first half), which was the result of increased average size of aircraft by approx. 7 seats compared to the second quarter of 2014 (approx. 6 seats in the first half) and a slight increase in the seat factor (S/F). Although S/F, calculated as the ratio of the number of passengers and offered passenger seats on the market increased by only 1% (in the first half of similar value) it should be noted that this result should be regarded as satisfactory if one takes into account more than 13% increase in the number of offered passenger seats.
Passenger traffic recorded by Polish airports in the first half of the year far exceeded those achieved through European ports affiliated to ACI Europe. While analyzing the situation in each group of airports, Warsaw Chopin Airport has reached, however, slightly worse result than comparable European ports. However regional airports (including Warsaw/Modlin) received significantly higher growth compared to the ports serving less than 5 million passengers per year. International traffic recorded at that time in Poland had higher dynamic range (+15%) compared to the international carriage carried out by ACI airports. At the same time the number of operations throughout the first half in Poland increased by 10%. It should be emphasized that the increase in international traffic was contributed by both the first and the second quarter. The very good results in the first half of the year was also recorded in domestic transport (+16%), which also developed at a much higher level than in the ACI airports. The leader of the growth in quantitative terms, in the second quarter and the first half of the year was the Warsaw/Modlin Airport. Among the regional airports, similarly like in the first quarter, the best result was recorded by Gdansk Airport, Krakow Airport and Katowice Airport. Other regional airports have also reached the positive dynamics. To a large extent it was due to the LCC carriers and network carriers who have opened new connections from several Polish airports.
As scheduled carriage was concerned, the largest increases in the second quarter were noted in the UK, followed by Germany, Norway and Spain. The most popular charter direction was Greece. It should be pointed out that traffic declines have occurred in the case of directions of unstable political situation as Israel or Tunisia and Egypt. Polish airports in the first half of 2015 has handled more than 13.8 million passengers, which represents a 15% increase compared to the same period of the previous year. The 14% growth was also noted in the second quarter and therefore was approx. 2 percentage points lower compared to the results recorded for the first quarter. In the second quarter the average length of flight also increased by 10 km. The growth occurred also in terms of number of operations. In the first half of the year it increased by 9% and in the second quarter by 7% (operations without passenger traffic not included). Passenger growth rate of the number of operations, however was lower than the growth recorded in the first quarter of 2015. In the second quarter there was also a significant increase in seat offering. The number of passenger seats available increased by 13% and in total in the first half of 2015 by the 14%. We invite you to read the full analysis (Polish language).
