clouds scaled
The air travel world has moved towards Open Skies. The US is the most significant air travel market, with many such agreements.
What do markets look like, and crucially, how has this worked out? We used the I-92 (APIS) data to determine whether these Open Skies agreements work. That is, does the traffic show any preference? For example, the US is home to the largest airlines in the world. These airlines can swamp competitors in almost every market. But do they?
The model below provides a view of this. The menu allows you to select one of the top 25 markets for air travel from the United States. The upper chart lists the number of people traveling by citizenship, and the lower chart shows the market share by airline flag.
Remember to click the double-headed arrow at the bottom right of the model for optimal viewing on your monitor. This will not look good on a mobile phone.
- Several markets show that US-flagged airlines dominate. This is especially the case in small markets like Aruba, for example.
- Then there are equally mature travel markets like France, Germany, and the UK, where the US-flagged airlines don’t dominate.
- Some interesting outliers include Italy, where US-flagged airlines dominate the market, even though Italy is a mature air travel market. This is probably because Italy’s flag carrier has a spotty performance record.
- Another interesting market is the UAE. Here, we have a market with scant US airline activity. The UAE offers excellent connections, which helps its airlines. For US airlines, the market is smaller than Brazil but much further away – it is simply not that attractive.
- Finally, there are markets where the split is about even. Australia is the only market that looks “balanced”; reciprocity exists. Several are in the 60-40 range, so near reciprocity.
The data suggest that Open Skies might not be the panacea it is thought to be—at least not in terms of airlines sharing a market. Nations may appreciate the easy flow of travelers and their spending power. However, for some airlines, Open Skies is more of a threat than attraction.
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