Driving connectivity: the benefits of Air Service Development
A profound Air Service Development program has major benefits for a wide range of stakeholders. The airport’s shareholders profit from increased shareholder value and return on investment whilst also preserving the sustainability of the airport strategy. Passengers embrace having greater connectivity to the world allowing them to travel to more destinations in a flexible manner. They also profit from lower ticket prices due to increased competition.
A further aspect which is often neglected by airports is the conservation of present traffic. Part of an effective Air Service Development program is not only the launch of new routes and the growth of existing capacity, such as a frequency increase or the use of larger aircraft on a current route, but also the sheer retention of these air services.
Catrin Drawer, Associate Partner at Lufthansa Consulting, elaborates on this: “During my two decades of business experience on the African continent and beyond, I have seen a multitude of airport operators constructing ultra-modern airport facilities for hundreds of million US dollars. Once the airports are ready, traffic stagnates, because the investment in an Air Service Development program has not been considered in the budget.”
Unlocking this potential is challenging since many airports struggle with a limited understanding of airline network management skills, in addition to a lack of resources and data to develop air services. Airports focus on different KPI’s and are not fluent in the “airline language” which often makes negotiations ineffective. Our experts undertand the airline plannning process and commerical decision criteria.
Catrin Drawer summarizes Lufthansa Consulting’s strengths and how the consultants support clients: “Besides having airline network planning expertise with state-of-the-art data bases and network simulation tools, our clients benefit from our objective analysis which allows the establishment of a trustworthy basis for discussion with our client’s (potential) airline customers all over the world. We are very realistic about a route’s commercial potential which makes our ASD approach industry-proven.”
Read the full article by Luisa Grasshoff published in the latest issue of Africa Wings: Driving connectivity on the African continent