ANALYSIS: Airlines in the Caribbean - The Biggest and Fastest Growing Operators
Ahead of this year's World Routes forum, Routesonline is providing another look at our series of articles on the leading airlines and airports and most used aircraft types across regions of the world last year. Here we look closely at the airlines of the Caribbean and highlight the region's top performers.
The data is all supplied by OAG Aviation using its OAG Schedules Analyser tool.
Scheduled Air Capacity From the Caribbean (2005 - 2014)
Our analysis of published schedules for the past ten years shows that air capacity within and from the Caribbean has risen from 40,559,386 available seats in 2005 to 41,688,853 available seats in 2014. This represents a growth of 2.8% across the period, with an average annual growth rate of 0.3%. The market was in decline during the first half of this period but returned to growth since 2010. In the past year, capacity increased 4.6%.
Top Ten Airlines in the Caribbean Market (2014)
US Airlines dominate travel to and from the Caribbean. JetBlue leads the way with a 12.5 per cent share of available capacity within and from the Caribbean in 2014. It has seen a 15 per cent network capacity growth since 2013, with its share of capacity in the region increasing 1.1 per cent since the previous year.
US major, American Airlines holds a 9.7 per cent capacity share, down 1.5 per cent in comparison to 2013. Caribbean Airlines is the first airline from the region to appear in this category, holding a 6.9 per cent capacity share, down from 7.3 per cent in 2013.
Panama's flag carrier, Copa Airlines, although only holding a 2.9 per cent share in capacity has witnessed an overall growth of 14.5 per cent in comparison to 2013. The airline has also achieved a marginal increase in capacity share in comparison to 2013, with a 0.3 per cent rise.
Fastest Growing Airlines in the Caribbean Market (2010-2014)
Looking at capacity data in the region across a five year period, alongside the relatively new market entrants of Southwest Airlines and Air Transat, it is Sunwing Airlines that has grown capacity by the biggest margin with capacity up 39,429 per cent from 2010. Significant growth during this timescale was also recorded by United Airlines (up 548.3 per cent) thanks to its merger with Continental Airlines and Copa Airlines which is up 105.8 per cent since 2010. Seaborne Airlines has also registered a considerable growth, up 157.4 per cent, as well as JetBlue up 82.9 per cent.
Data comparison between 2013 and 2014 shows that Southwest Airlines has seen the largest year-on-year growth among the top 20 carriers in this region with capacity rising 166 per cent over the 12 month period, followed by Air Transat with a 27.9 per cent increase year-on-year. Substantial capacity growth within and from the Caribbean was also recorded by Delta Air Lines, (25.1 per cent) Seaborne Airlines, (17.8 per cent) Cubana, (17.4 per cent) and United Airlines (15.7 per cent).
Scheduled Caribbean Capacity by Aircraft Type
The chart below shows which aircraft types were most prevalent in the Caribbean market during 2014. The schedule data shows the Boeing 737-800 (738) is the most widely used aircraft type in this market with a 15.9 per cent share of available seats with overall network capacity up 9.6 per cent between 2013 and 2014.
The second most utilised aircraft type in this market is the Airbus A320 (320) with a 13 per cent share, while third most widely operated type by network capacity is the Boeing 757 (757) with a 5.0 per cent share.
The biggest rise in annual capacity among the top ten aircraft types were recorded by the ATR 72 (AT7) with a 67.9 per cent rise in available domestic seats in 2014 versus 2013. The largest decline in annual capacity was recorded by the older generation ATR (ATR) with a fall of 29 per cent versus 2013.
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