During the last couple of months, we’ve put out many posts that analyze the past performance of airlines. For example, we recently looked at the August performance of many carriers, including Air France, Ryanair, easyJet, and many others. With this new format, we don’t look back but want to provide some insights into airlines’ potential performance of the current month. First, however, it is worth and essential mentioning that all figures provided on this blog post are predictions — please keep in mind!
For this very first edition, we look at Spain and Portugal. And to be more precise, we’ve selected the biggest carriers of the two countries: Iberia, Vueling, and TAP Air Portugal. We provide a forecast concerning flight volume, on-time performance, and schedule reliability for all three airlines. Moreover, we put those figures into context and provide data from the recent month. Enjoy!
Definitions
Let’s quickly define the indicators we discuss in this blog post.
Flight Volume
We define flight volume as the number of flights the airline will perform in a certain period — in our case, September 2021.
Punctuality
Punctuality counts all flights that arrive on time at their destination airport and puts them into relation to the overall operated number of flights. On-time in this context is defined as +15/-15 compared to the scheduled arrival time. We consider an on-time performance above 90% as good (green), from 80%-90% as ok (orange), and below 80% as weak (red).
Flight Schedule Reliability (Reliability)
Schedule reliability counts the number of actually performed flights in relation to scheduled flights. In other words, the percentage of flights that an airline didn’t cancel. We consider schedule reliability above 95% as good (green), from 90%-95% as ok (orange), and below 90% as weak (red).
Iberia, Vueling, TAP — Performance Forecast Overview
Before diving into the details of every single airline, we put together the most relevant information below. Based on our forecast, Vueling will remain Spain’s biggest airline in September. Compared to Iberia, Vueling operates almost 25% more flights. Portugal’s TAP ranks third in terms of flight volume, operating half the flights of Iberia.
In terms of punctuality, Iberia and Vueling are famous for their extraordinary performance. Based on our performance, they’ll continue to deliver solid punctuality in September. However, currently, we believe Vueling will achieve a slightly better result. For TAP Air Portugal, we predict an OTP of 88%.
Concerning flight schedule reliability, all three carriers will deliver a perfect result. If nothing unforeseen happens, the airlines will achieve reliability above 99%. At the moment, we see Iberia as the one that will deliver the “best of the best” performances.
| IATA | Airlines | Flight Volume | Punctuality | Reliability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IB | Iberia | 13,600 | 94.8% | 99.9% |
| VY | Vueling | 17,300 | 95.3% | 99.8% |
| TP | TAP Air Portugal | 7,000 | 88.2% | 99.7% |
If you want to have a deep dive into the airlines’ August performance, follow the links below:
Iberia
Let’s start with the most significant change first: We forecast a negative flight volume growth of 5% compared to August. In fact, this will be the first flight volume reduction at Iberia in 2021. However, reducing the schedule after the summer months isn‘t unusual. Nevertheless, and as recently shown, Iberia is still on its way back to a pre-COVID volume. Therefore, our current forecast will once again increase the gap to pre-COVID figures.
In terms of flight punctuality, Iberia will —most likely— perform quite similarly to August. As in previous months, the Spanish flag-carrier will operate at a very high level of 94.8%. Moreover, we also predict a slight improvement of Iberia‘s schedule reliability. As a result, Iberia will —almost— achieve 100% reliability.
Vueling
Similar to Iberia, Vueling will also reduce its flight volume for the first time in 2021. With 4%, the reduction is only slightly lower compared to Iberia. However, with 17,300 flights, Vueling will remain Spain‘s biggest airline in September.
Also, similar to Iberia, we forecast a robust on-time performance for September. With 95.3%, we expect Vueling a bit ahead of Iberia at the end of the month. In terms of flight schedule reliability, we predict a strong result of 99.8%. Accordingly, we expect that Vueling will cancel only ~30 flights in September.
TAP Air Portugal
For TAP Air Portugal, we predict a similar flight volume reduction as for Vueling. If this plays out, TAP will operate 7,000 flights in September. Punctuality-wise, we anticipate an on-time performance of 88.2%. Compared to August, punctuality will slightly decrease by 1.3pp. On the other side, we see an improvement of TAP‘s flight schedule reliability of 0.1pp.
What’s Your Opinion?
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