In the first quarter of 2016 Polish airports served more than 6.4 million passengers, which represents a 13% increase compared to the same period of the previous year. In the first months of the year trends of the previous periods could still be noticed. The number of passengers, the number of operations and the fill factor of places increased.
The Polish market generally had better results than the European and global markets. The great results were accompanied by the significant changes, which concerned both the transport and the share of the individual carriers on the market and the directions offered by them. A strong increase in regular traffic can be spotted. In the case of charters, like in the fourth quarter of 2015, there was a significant slowdown. LCC carriers like Ryanair and Wizzair noted very good results, they were, among others, the main drivers of growth in the Polish airports. In addition, due to the expiration of the limitations in the routemap (due to the presentation in 2013 of the European Commission's Restructuring Plan of the Company), LOT Polish Airlines increased its offer and opened more than 10 new flight routs, it also generated a 17% increase in passenger numbers. It should also be pointed out that in the first quarter, almost no port had a negative growth in its traffic (a decrease was only noticed in the case of Zielona Góra Babimost airport).
Warsaw / Modlin, Krakow and Warsaw Chopin were the leaders of the growth from the quantitative point of view in the first quarter of 2016. All these airports reached a growth of approx. 150 thousand passengers.
As part of the scheduled traffic in the first quarter, the largest increases were spotted in the directions to the United Kingdom, followed by Germany, Spain and Norway. In the case of charter flights the most popular direction was Spain . It is noted that the declines occurred in the case of the directions where the political situation is unstable like Egypt, Israel and Turkey.
In the first quarter of 2016 the share structure of the market was changed due to the business model of air carriers. Low cost carriers increased their market share at the expense of network carriers and developed much more rapidly. While the dynamics of LCC traffic in the first quarter increased by 20%, the increase in the case of network carriers was by 8%. The highest growth rate among the LCC carriers was obtained by Ryanair and Wizzair. Good results were also recorded by Easy Jet. Norwegian, comparing to the vast expansion in the previous quarters, significantly reduced its offer. In the case of network carriers the largest increases in quantitative perspective was obtained by LOT Polish Airlines, KLM and Lufthansa.
Travel Service became the new leader among charter airlines in the first quarter, in terms of both the number of passengers served and quantitative growth, it overtook Enter Air.
We invite you to take a look at the statistics and detailed analysis.
