July 2017 T-100 - Asia

Asia has been a great success for BOS since JL started their flights a few years back with their first 787. Since then HU has come along and taken PVG and PEK by storm and then CX with HKG. All 3 carriers have shown 80%+ load factors on a rolling 12 month basis on all 4 routes. Now whether that's because of incentives allowing them to have reduced fares to encourage folks to take the direct routes, or it's just a great market, it's hard to tell from the standard numbers. But a non-stop market of nearly 400K passengers has been created out of pretty much nothing.

The market itself right now has matured. all 4 routes have been running a year or more, so capacities and flight levels have settled.

JL - longest running route, but down about 1,000 passengers on a rolling 12 month basis, meaning 1.5% drop in loads, however interestingly July itself was down nearly 600 or 6%, one to watch going forward.

CX - rolling 12 months has loads at 87.3%, the highest of the 4 routes thus far, in July flights increased from 35 to 43, which lead to a 22.9% increase in seats, but a 24.9% increase in pax with an additional 2,100 using the route and an 89% load.

HU - PEK has seen the switch from the 787-8 to the -9 and a corresponding 14% increase in capacity, but passengers have come along in-line at 13%, so although a very slight dip in load factors, 1,500 more folks used this route this month alone. Rolling 12 months, that's an extra 8K pax on the route (aug-jul) HU-PVG - this route is still building to get a proper 12 month rolling comparative, YTD, with a 400% increase in available capacity (36 flights this time last year, to 183 this year) loads have outperformed it with an uptick from 86.3 to 87.7%, however July itself was flat with a slight dip of 1.3% overall to 86.9% from 88.2%

The general discussion is around CX going daily next year and the impact that could potentially have on their numbers and whether they could go further in the future and add a second flight. It's clear with the success of all routes that the market exists and whether ICN and/or TPE could be added as well in the future. Time will tell, especially if all 3 carriers continue to have these levels of passengers on the routes.

#HU #Hainan #JL #Jal #Asia #CX #Cathay