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One can do nothing but agree with Air Malta regarding decisions to be taken in case of a possible Ryanair run from Bremen.
Hamburg has been a low-yield market for (Air) Malta, only kept open particularly during winter as a tie-up with Berlin, as a quick look into Air Malta’s schedule reveals. Berlin is also no strong outgoing-tourism market. Hence Berlin is only kept open if paired with Hamburg. If the Hamburg link is destroyed, then a regular Berlin link is also lost, at least during winter. One would have gained an airport in low-cost-at-any-cost style, but in addition to losing the link to Hamburg, northern Germany’s most centrally located and economically leading city, one severely damages the link to Germany’s capital.
Furthermore, the catchment area of Schleswig-Holstein might suffer. From Kiel, capital of Schleswig-Holstein state, one drives 220km to Billund (Sterling/JetTime), part of which is a country road or on Denmark’s motorway where one drives slower than in Germany. Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel is just 90kms of autobahn away. Bremen means 220kms of autobahn, but including crossing the jammy Elbtunnel. With Malta only linked through Bremen and Billund, people from Schleswig-Holstein will fly elsewhere, while some people from Hamburg for whom Ryanair might be no option (elderly tourists, or for example, many Lufthansa and Airbus employees, Airbus Hamburg assembles Easyjet’s A319s, or people who do not want to go to Bremen) would be lost too. Hamburg cannot just survive on Schleswig-Holstein sourced traffic and what remains of Hamburg given that it is not too strong already now. Malta is a bit of a niche destination. With Air Malta selling return tickets at EUR99 including all taxes fares are not the problem.
Losing Hamburg and partly Berlin just to have a low-cost-at-any-cost Bremen link is hence no plus for Malta.
In a short interview with German aviation magazine Aero International (November 2006), Manfred Ernst, boss of Bremen’s airport, explained that as regards defining the catchment area one can estimate a circumference of 200km, mentioning that Ryanair is confident to draw passengers from Hamburg to Bremen.
Hence Bremen might also weaken Düsseldorf as regards passengers sourced particularly in the Münster/Osnabrück area, plus the northern and eastern Ruhrgebiet, linked to Bremen via the A1 autobahn (places like Dortmund or Recklinghausen, otherwise going for Düsseldorf, are just 200kms of autobahn from Bremen), provided even a small fare difference. The impact should not be as devastating as on Hamburg, but should be felt. Germany’s autobahn network has partly no speed limit, 130kph being a most leisurely speed. Not to mention trains.
Hamburg, Berlin and particularly Düsseldorf are however far more important cities and airports than Bremen.
Air Malta, seasonally supplemented by Transavia (the Euro low-cost arm of the KLM-Air France concern), operates out of Amsterdam. Groningen, so far going to Amsterdam, is halfway to Bremen, though a possible effect on Amsterdam indeed cannot be compared to what will happen to Hamburg, with its rip-on effects, or also Düsseldorf.
So, no chance to give Ryanair fans a link to Germany that still could be a real addition? Not really.
There is Leipzig-Halle or Altenburg, which Ryanair sells as Leipzig. While Leipzig has the better infrastructure, Altenburg is further away from Berlin, reducing the cannibalisation risk. Berlin is the German state with the lowest car-ownership rate, Berliners hence less likely to drive far to fly from elsewhere. Berlin’s outgoing-focused flights primarily source on the city-state itself. The area immediately around Berlin is thinly populated.
Compared to Leipzig, Altenburg, a Ryanair-only airport, is somewhat nearer to reach by car from e.g. Chemnitz, Dresden, Zwickau or Jena. Thuringia and Saxony are the economically best-performing ex-GDR states. Enterprises like AMD, Porsche, BMW, Volkswagen or Carl Zeiss are manufacturing in Altenburg’s catchment area. Altenburg is far away enough from Frankfurt and Prague. Formerly Leipzig saw summer charters by Air Malta or Hamburg International.
With Leipzig/Altenburg, Ryanair could attract genuinely additional tourists. Altenburg has no flights to the southern Med. One could have an innovative destination monopoly. Everybody wanting to go to a really sunny place with Ryanair (Girona cannot compare in this respect to Malta), would be forced to either go to Malta or leave it. Why not invest in Ryanair to develop this new market, instead of paying them for destroying existing links?
A Leipzig-Altenburg link might slightly damage Berlin but by far not as badly as Bremen would damage Hamburg. Hence Berlin flights might still not have to be cut, meaning one could then keep both Hamburg and Berlin open, instead of possibly losing one completely and partly losing the other as with the Ryanair-Bremen case. One cannot expect miracles, but Leipzig-Altenburg is a geographic addition. Maybe one could leave Air Malta in Hamburg and Berlin and invite Ryanair to this ‘white spot’ source-market where they are present anyway. This could be a compromise making everybody happy.
A western-German niche could be a summer link from Paderborn, certainly not impossibly far by autobahn from Düsseldorf and Cologne (180kms each), and certainly with catchment area eastern Ruhrgebiet right half-way, but with some potential for e.g. religious tourism, being a ‘very Catholic’ area. Maybe a once weekly Air Malta or Air Berlin A319/B737-300 or -700 could work during summer schedule, once-weekly meaning still limited pressure on Düsseldorf (Air Malta) and Cologne (Germanwings, replaced Air Malta). Air Berlin has a base in Paderborn. Paderborn has city partnerships with Malta. It could cover corners of northern Hessen, eastern Westfalia, and Lower Saxony from where it is a bit distant to go to Düsseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt or Hamburg.
The agenda must be strengthening existing links while developing geographically genuinely new source markets, not just paying to destroy Air Malta for the sake of “ghasafar tac-comb” ideology or what else. Without subsidies anybody is anyway since long free to operate. With a Ryanair Leipzig/Altenburg link one could still financially support Ryanair, while destination Malta would here genuinely gain on the sourcing map, instead of just replacing services. Operationally it is no problem for Ryanair to run a roster Pisa-Malta-Leipzig(Altenburg)-Malta-Pisa.
Matthias A. Merzhäuser
Mudersbach,
Germany
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