brunos

It would be interesting to have the ME3 on this chart.

Indeed AFKL is a big airline and Asia-Pacific (including Thaiti) has always been its major LH region (as opposed to BA IAG), especially for AF. But that is changing and North America is growing while Asia is dropping (even including China).

The latest traffic figures show that January 2016 ASK in Asia-Pacific has dropped -4.4% relative to January 2015 (while NA is growing by 4.7%).
http://www.airfranceklm.com/sites/de...n16_va_def.pdf

In full year 2014, ASK in Asia-Pacific declined by -1.9% while NA increased by 1% compared to 2013.
Again, we do not have the figures for Asia exChina, but I would bet that they are much much worse.

HasteFlier

Thanks for the additional figures !

I think we agree on the two points then - AF is still a big player in Europe-Asia, but that is changing.

I'd say the ME3 aren't on this chart as it is in terms of ASK (seats x kilometers), so it only takes direct flights into account as you can't calculate a capacity for connecting itineraries.
But I agree it would be great to see the passenger shares (that would include ME3), and, more relevant to our discussion, their evolution in the last 5 or 10 years.

NickB

It is not a question of "liking" or "not liking" but of refuting the argument that the examples you give show that AF has become a "minor player". You do not show that an airline is a minor player merely by showing that they do not fly to secondary destinations, i.e. destinations which are flown by their peers either (incidentally, do not confuse tautology and definition). But since you accept that it would not be accurate to describe AF as a "minor player", I think we are in agreement on substance here.

[quote]My point is that AF used to serve those "secondary" destinations and they don't anymore. At the same time they have drastically reduced their frequency to the major ones: e.g. SIN & HKG as mentioned above, Japan (partly for sad reasons), BKK (from 2 flights to a single 3-weekly).

Yes, but from a low base. It is always easier to increase starting from low.

Again an overstatement, imo: they are still visible (they have not disappeared, have they?) albeit not as prominent.

if you are talking about overall presence, whether a minor player or not, etc..., then surely it is totally arbitrary to focus just on point to point.

The reductions in Asia by airlines are commensurate to their presence. BA had little exposure and therefore is less affected. LH has medium exposure and is in the middle in terms of being affected. AF had the greatest exposure of the 3 and is therefore more affected. This does not tell us much about there being a specific problem at AF. It tells us that the present conjuncture is not very favourable for European carriers in Asia and that, therefore, the most exposed are the most affected.

It seems to me tha you run the danger of (mis-)reading a factual situation as a strategy. I am not aware of there ever having been a deliberate attempt by AF to dominate in Asia. There has been a deliberate effort in China, yes, but I do not think that there ever was a strategy of being a dominant carriers from Europe to Asia.

brunos

That is a point that could be argued by digging out old AF business plans and other materials, but that would be difficult and not worth the effort.
I believe, but anyone can disagree, that AF had Asia and Africa as its LH priority. Africa because of historical reasons. Asia because of some historical reasons and because it was expected to be the fast-growth region. I had close friends at AF top top management (say at the turn of the millennium) and Asia was their focus. They wanted to be the top airline on Europe-Asia. At the time, that showed in marketing material. And they did succeed to some extent. But that is a time now gone.

BTW: I stand by my statement "AF was very visible in Asia (exChina), it is not anymore". AF was "very visible" and it is not "very visible" anymore. That seems straightforward. I never said that it had become invisible. At least that was not what I intended.

NickB

OK fair enough.

Ah, I get it. What you meant is that it stood out and it no longer does (whereas I read it as it was very visible and it no longer is visible), in which case again that is a fair comment.

San Gottardo

There is a German saying: "I only believe the statistic that I fake myself".

Looking at the numbers above I wouldn't take too much comfort from them if I was AFKL. Three things to bear in mind when looking at those CAPA numbers:

1) It measures available seat kilometers. In other words, one and the same plane flying Amsterdam-Jakarta (11,353 km) instead of Frankfurt-Bangalore (7,406 km) already racks up 53% more available seat kilometers.
2) Data is for a winter month. Lufthansa's Asia program ex-Munich is much more variable summer/winter than is the case for flights from AMS, CDG, FRA or ZRH. Measure the same thing again in summer and the difference may be smaller.
3) Lufthansa is struggling in Asia as well, so feeling great about being ahead of another struggling carrier, well...

So do the numbers indicate that AFKL has a stronger position in the Europe-Asia market? Not necessarily. Maybe their network is skewed towards more distant destinations whilst they are nowhere in India (i.e. more kilometers), maybe they just use bigger planes (more AF 777s and KL 777/747 vs. a mix of 748/330 size by LH), maybe on a yearly average the difference is smaller. And the numbers don't say anythign about to what extent this position translates into operating income.

Not to say that AFKL is a nobody on the Asia market (I think the above comments by brunos, orbitmic et al. summarise the situation quite well). Just wanted to put a caveat behind these numbers.

HasteFlier

Very good point - while ASKs are a common measure of airline "production", you are totally right in that they don't translate so easily to market share, seats, or profits - and they are by no means the "best" metric.

Biggest aircraft would translate in a larger market presence, all,other things (load factor, notably) being equal - this is not necessarily the case, but it's the only aspect you mention i'd argue with

More generally, I agree the ASK measure is only one data source among many which would be equally relevant - such as passenger shares (including connecting itineraries including the ME3).
The figure measures "production" (a larger plane costs more to fly, and you'd still need less block times to DEL than to JKT, meaning more planes for the same frequency, even if it's not linear), but "production" is not necessarily linked to market share - this might also be somehow linked to AF or other europeans dropping some destinations, as market share / LF / Yield might have become too low to justify keeping the destination.

San Gottardo

And there is another point: two airlines, identical airframe, identical route, but one airline has a premium-heavy configuration, the other stuffs its planes with Eco passengers. The second one has more ASK.

That also plays a role for AFKL whose configurations on certain routes are less premium heavy than for instance LHLX and especially BA.

MRC

[QUOTE=Goldorak;26122637]As guessed, the SIN-CGK tag is axed from the beginning of the summer season. The AF communiqué is vague in the way that we don't know if it could be reinstated for the winter season (I'm guessing it will not). The last flight will be on march 27. Timings of CDG-SIN-CDG terminator flights will be readjusted to facilitate connections to Europe in CDG. Pax are rebooked on GA or KL.

I was supposed to be on the axed AF8398 CGK-SIN-CDG-AMS route next October on PE. I got a message from KL that I have been put on the CGK-AMS KL810 flight in regular economy, albeit near emergency exit, "without extra costs". And also I was notified that "changing the flight could result in extra costs". I assume my PE tickets on AF cost more than regular economy on KL, shouldnt I get money back? And will I get less level miles? Or will I have the same booking class, including miles entitlement, but just being downgraded from PE to regular economy?

carnarvon

You should at least get an Economy Comfort seat.

Why don't you call them to discuss the miles issue and the refund?

orbitmic

[QUOTE=MRC;26235506]yes you should get partial refund or right to cancel with full refund or right to rebook (e.g to SIN on AF PE then Garuda to CGK) and yes you'll get fewer miles.

ticino

I think Montevideo might be cancelled. Just got a notification for a cancelled flight and when I checked online I couldn't find any flights around those dates.
The weird thing is that I cannot find the flight to Buenos Aires either, they can't possibly be cancelling Buenos Aires??? I understand Montevideo, I have only flown empty planes from EZE, but the CDG-EZE leg always seems completely full.

The flight is CDG-EZE-MVD. I'll call them tomorrow to find out what's going on. I am so going to miss AF if they have indeed cancelled MVD, I was so happy when they returned.

Update: I logged into the KLM site and there I could see that I have been re-boked for the following day. KLM seems better at providing information....