Originally Posted by FD1971

Absolutely, but that was expected, wasn't it?

Like I posted before, Alcazar would have changed the playing field, after that it was Business as usual resulting in the status quo we see at the moment. The only unexpected change, carriers like AB and AZ are actually still around, not because the market needs them, but solely because Etihad needs feed and cannot accomplish that on their own metal.

SAS is still 'independant', because they have 3-4 dozen unions and after all the market is small, used to be high yield, but saw the LCC take over more and more routes as well, so SAS is not that interesting anymore, same with Alitalia.

It is difficult to predict the exact market shares for 2020 or 2025, but the ME3 have all their hands full thanks to DC, Berlin and Paris, costs at Ryanair will increase if they want to grow and they are basically one accident and a few TV Features about their practices of hiring pilots away from far more scrutiny than ever before.

And for KL/AF, Italy became just another unwanted construction side, LH faced the same when the JV with SAS did not continue, so it will be interesting to see how they manage the challenge.

In any case, the cost of getting feed from Italy will increase and you simply cannot cut spokes as a major hub&spoke carrier. Cutting spokes like MIA or MCO is completely insane, cutting spokes like CGN might be acceptable, but in this case we are talking about far more markets.