Bristol: CAA Provisional Statistics Update

[Aviador]

According to latest CAA passenger statistics at total of 344,771 passed through Bristol Airport (BRS) during February, -5.7% down on February last year.

Rolling year passengers stand at 5,707,160, up 0.8% on the previous 12 months.

Source: CAA

Disappointing passenger numbers for Bristol airport but still good in comparison with many of the other major regional players.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

February 2011

Slightly better figures than I anticipated.

I wrote a couple of months ago that there were around 8% fewer seats available in January this year than in January 2010, and the same applied to February. It was due mainly to Ryanair reducing its winter schedule from BRS by about 40% on the previous winter.

Atms were down 8.9% in February which roughly corresponds with the approximately 8% fewer available seats. The fact that passenger numbers were down by 5.7% means that there was a higher take-up on the available seats than in February 2010.

March can be expected to be down, unless load factors across the board increase sensationally, but the test will be the summer months. If the airport can maintain some sort of parity month by month on 2010 the anticipated flattish year might not be quite as bad as anticipated.

In fact, there is a built-in bonus, as there is for every UK airport, because April 2010 saw UK airports closed for about six days because of the volcanic ash, therefore it will be a disappointed airport that does not see some percentage growth in April 2011.

Of course, there are many other factors that could hinder progress right across the UK in 2011, from a return of the ash to oil prices to government taxation policies to unrest at world trouble spots to industrial action in the UK and/or abroad.

 

[alphagolf]

TheLocalYokel

These figures are a bit misleading as the two Belfast Airports have not reported yet, so I estimate around another 22,000 pax to be added to this figure which I would think will just take it back into positive territory!

Thanks, alphagolf

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The CAA stats collection process seems to be somewhat arcane.

Although one or both of the Belfast airports are sometimes not in the first published draft of provisional airport monthly stats it never seems to alter BRS's final monthly total much when they finally appear.

I've been downloading and keeping on file each monthly final draft of airport provisional figures for several years and they don't vary much with the 'audited' figures that appear about two months later in table 02 2 (summary of airports activity) - perhaps a thousand or two each month at most in BRS's case.

This leads me to believe that although BFS and BHD's own provisional figures have not yet appeared the BRS figures published by the CAA do take account of the Belfast routes from information supplied by BRS to the CAA.

BRS's own monthly figures for February show 342,413 passengers handled in the month, down 6.27% on their own figures for February 2010. BRS's monthly figures are invariably slightly lower each month than the CAA stats because, I was told, BRS does not include transit pax in its own figures.

Incidentally, BRS's own figures for February 2011 show atms down 12.04% on its own figures for February 2010, whereas the CAA stats show a drop of 8.9%. How the atm figures can be at variance like this I have no idea.

Having said all this, there have been times when the original CAA provisional monthly list of airport figures has been altered significantly for a particular airport prior to the final draft of provisional figures, but on those occasions the discrepancies were so big that a clear error had been made, and I've no knowledge of BRS ever being involved.

I'll make a note to check table CAA 02 2 (the definitive final CAA monthly total) when the February 2011 total is published in about two months time to see how it corresponds with the provisional total currently published.

If the Belfast routes are still to be added it would mean that BRS performed exceptionally well in the month as it would have maintained passenger figures but with around 8% fewer seats in the month.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Further to my previous posts, Belfast City figures have now been included in the latest version of February 2011 airport provisional stats and BRS figures remain the same.

It seems to confirm that the total BRS monthly figures did include the BHD and BFS routes, even though the Northern Irish airports themselves did not initially appear in their own right.

I've also checked the total seats available from/to BRS for the first week of the scheduled summer season which starts next week, and the number of seats is down by just over 3% compared with the same week in 2010. At least this is better than the winter when total monthly available seats were down by around 8% on the previous year.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

March 2011

CAA stats not yet published but the airport's own stats show a fall of 8.57% in passenger numbers compared with March 2010, with 391,892 passengers handled. As usual the CAA stats will show a slightly higher total of passengers as BRS doesn't include transit passengers in its own figures.

Atms for the month were down 5.96%.

The biggest faller precentage-wise was scheduled international at 9.91%. This must be a concern because it's usually been the scheduled domestic and charter that have been the worst performers for a number of years (they were both down in March as well but not as much as scheduled international in percentage terms), especially as scheduled international atms were down only by 5.59%, suggesting lower load factors at least on some routes.

Until the summer figures kick in, and April will be deceptive as it will compare with last April's volcanic ash closure, we won't have a clear idea on how the year will go. From the beginning I've been expecting an overall loss this year. There have been approximately 8% fewer seats available throughout the winter and may well be fewer in summer compared with last year.

BRS doesn't show 12-monthly rolling totals, just the rolling total for the current calendar year which stands at 1,061,661 for the first three months of the year, down 4.90% on the same period last year. April may put things somewhere near parity for the first four months - the ash factor - but then let's see how summer goes.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

April 2011

Because BRS, like all UK airports, was closed for nearly a week in April 2010 owing to the ash cloud problems the stats for this month have to be read in that context.

However, there are promising underlying trends.

Tha airport's own figures have been published today (still awaiting CAA stats) which show 485,382 passengers were handled in April, up 33.24% on April 2010. As usual the rider is added that the airport's stats don't include transit passenger whereas the CAA does so the overall number of passengers will be a bit higher in those figures when they are published.

The airport doen't show a rolling 12-monthly total, only the calendar year to date which for the period January-April 2011 is 1,547,043, up 4.49% on the same period in 2010.

Comparing 2011 with 2009 (when Easter was also well into April), January was up 1.8%, February up 7%, March up 0.7% and April up over 16%. As April is the first month of the summer scheduled timetable it is an encouraging rise and in line with the recent comments of the CEO that he expects a busy summer.

Atms for April were up 15.76% which seems incredibly low for a passenger rise of over 33%. If this is not a mistake it indicates a very healthy rise in loads across the board.

 

[Aviador]

Your last paragraph is one of great interest. Healthy passenger rises are clearly welcomed. Lets hope this continues well into the year ahead.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

CAA stats April 2011

CAA stats now published and, as usual, the monthly passenger numbers are a few thousand more than the airport's own stats.

CAA figures show that 489,720 people used the airport in the month up, 33% on April 2011 but, as already said, this is fairly meaningless as a comparison because of last year's ash closure.

Atms were up 28.5% which is not far short of the percentage rise in passenger numbers. Where the airport's discrepancy came from vis-a-vis atms/passenger number percentage rises, goodness knows.

Rolling 12-month total was 5,791,334, up 2.5% on a year ago and the best 12-monthly figure since May 2009.

 

[Aviador]

With respects to the discrepancy, do the airports own figures include transit passengers?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Bristol doesn't include transit passengers in its figures at any time. I was led to believe that this was the reason for the discrepancy with the CAA figures.

However, on looking more closely, the CAA doesn't either in its provisional figures but does in the final figures, or so it would seem from a comparison of the two sets of figures for any month, and not just for Bristol of course.

Therefore I have no idea why the airport and CAA figures for Bristol are at variance.

Seems rather odd but is a variation on the offering attributed to a certain S L Clemens about lies, damn lies and statistics. Then again he enjoyed being a bit mysterious himself as he liked to be known to the world as Mark Twain.

 

[alphagolf]

CAA Stats for May 2011 published but as yet the Airport hasn't released its own figures, so here goes:-

May Pax = 534,654 Up 2.9% on May 2010 Rolling 12 Months = 5,806,166 Up 2.3%

May Movements = 5,000 Up 2.1% on May 2010 Rolling 12 Months = 54,297 Up 1.1%

Good to see passenger numbers rising more than movements, its time to worry when increases in movements are more than the increase in passengers. A relatively good set of results, especially breaking through the 5.8 million again, lets hope this continues throughtout the rest of this year!

alphagolf

 

[TheLocalYokel]

May 2011

If June is also up by around 2% the prospects for the rest of the year are promising.

Similar percentage rises for the remaining summer months with November and December flat (these months have shown a downward spiral since 2007, even including the record-breaking year of 2008 when the aiport saw 6.228 mppa) and the airport would be on track to equal its second best ever calendar year when 5.884 million passengers were handled in 2007.

The 534,000 figure of May 2011 is the second best May on record, beaten only by 2008, so June really ought to give a strong clue as to the prospects for 2011 as a whole.

 

[Aviador]

Passenger growth from Bristol airport

All in all Bristol is performing exceptionally well all considered. Outside of Bristol the airport has no obvious large conurbations to feed the airport unlike other similar sized airports around the UK. According to Wikipedia around 4,928,458 people live within the South West of England, so Bristol must pick up a sizable number passenger air journeys from the South West region.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

The last CAA passenger survey involving BRS was published in 2008 which was at the time the airport was seeing its best ever passenger figures, over 6 mppa.

The survey found that the origin/destination of passengers surveyed was as follows:

Greater Bristol 47.7%
Wales 12.8%
Somerset 11.7%
Devon 8.8%
Wiltshire 6.3%
Gloucestershire 5.1%
Cornwall 2.8%
West Midlands 1.7%
Dorset 1.4%
South East England 1.1%
Various 0.6%

Although these surveys are never completely accurate the figures correspond closely with BRS's survey in connection with its 2005 master plan.

The near 50% share from Greater Bristol demonstrates the economic strength and prosperity of, to an extent, an isolated city within a large rural and semi-rural region.

Bristol though is invariably under-estimated because it is probably the only major English city whose boundaries have not been expanded for fifty years though the surrounding urban sprawl has continued to spread. People not familiar with the area assume the city's population is 420,000 whereas there are three other local authorities physically joined to Bristol (you can't see the join in the urban landscape) with the biggest, South Gloucestershire, being a 'city' with 200,000 'city' inhabitants. Add in the nearby satellite towns and the population pushes up towards one million.

The other point to make is that Wales's (mainly south and west Wales) contribution amounted to over three quarters of a million passengers. Imagine what it would do to CWL's fortunes if they could get many of them back.

That said, the BRS CEO said only recently that too many potential BRS passengers from Greater Bristol and the wider south west are still using more distant airports (mainly London) and he put the figure at over 5 million, not that he would realistically expect to get them all to use BRS - there are no long haul scheduled direct routes from BRS for a start.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

June 2011

May was a bit of a false road ahead for the rest of the year with its 2.9% rise, probably because the ash closures of May 2010 hadn't been taken into account. Everyone remembers the UK ash shutdown of April 2010 but many airports, including BRS, also saw significant ash cancellations in May of 2010 as well.

The CAA stats for June 2011 show 572,764 passengers were handled, down 3.1% on June 2010. Atms were down 4.6% which suggests that in general loads held up and slightly improved.

Rolling 12-month figure was 5,788,066, up 1.1% on a year ago.

The figures are a bit disappointing. I was expecting at least parity with June 2010 and possibly a small percentage rise. Some routes such as the CO to Newark have gone but others such as Edinburgh, Dublin and Amsterdam have seen extra rotations and all these routes are substantially up on last year.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

July and August 2011

Just compared the first week of August 2010 with that of August 2011 on Mayfly and find there are 172,600 seats available this year compared to 181,000 last year, which is a reduction of 4.6%.

Now Mayfly is not a precise tool but it is sufficient to give a reasonably accurate picture.

I haven't got the figures for July 2010 but suspect the comparison is much the same as August.

If the airport can achieve no worse than two or three minus percentage points in these months it will be a relatively satisfactory performance. Anything better will be encouraging.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Dimishing charter market share

Interesting to have a look back at CAA statistics over the past decade to see how the precentage of charter flights versus scheduled has fallen.

2000

The last year before the airport became a low cost airline base.

2.126 million passengers handled that year of which 1.148 million were charter passenger, 54% of the total.

2001

The first year of the Go base, later absorbed into easyJet.

2.673 million passengers handled that year of which 1.221 million were charter passengers, 45.7% of the total.

2006

5.710 million passengers handled that year of which 1.386 million were charter passengers, 24.3% of the total.

2010

5.723 million passengers handled that year of which 903,000 were charter passengers, 15.8% of the total.

In the first six months of 2011 charter passenger numbers have declined further, by 7.61% over the same period in 2010, though overall passenger numbers for the first half of 2011 are up 2.48%.

It will be seen that although charter passenger numbers grew slightly in real terms during the first half of the decade their percentage of the whole was a steadily decreasing trend. Since 2006 both numbers and percentage share have dropped significantly.

There appears to be no end to the pattern and I suspect that similar movements can be found in many UK regional airports to a degree.

Holiday tour companies going out of business at regular intervals certainly won't have a positive effect on either numbers or the public's confidence to book for the future.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

July 2011

CAA stats for July 2011 show 625,217 passengers were handled, down 3% on July 2010. Atms were down 6.7%. Rolling 12-month total was 5,768,943 up just 0.5% on a year ago.

Three weeks ago I wrote that because available seats were down by 4-5% in peak summer this year compared with last the airport ought to consider the performance satisfactory if passenger numbers came in no more than 3 points down in July and August. The July figure is precisely 3 points down.

The year as a whole shows that BRS is holding its own but no more. It didn't lose so many passengers in the recession as some in its peer group, though some of them are now beginning to claw back some of their lost passengers.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

August 2011

CAA stats show that 672,904 passengers used the airport in August, down 1.9% on August 2010. Atms were down 4.2% so loads probably held up well in general.

Rolling 12 month figure was 5,755,632, up 0.1%.