With John Grant being on the panel at the World Routes Strategy Summit this morning, we thought this would be a great opportunity to share with you some of the interesting questions he was asked during the Q&A session:

What do Middle East carriers do for the Industry’s route development?

“Using OAG’s Traffic and Schedules Analyser tools I thought I’d get prepared for this panel session, and the results are pretty impressive. The roots of this discussion go back claims by the ‘Big Three’ US airlines of ‘unfair competition’ by the Middle East ‘Big Three’ in the Spring of this year. Post the Summer holidays it’s back on the agenda once more, especially as yields and global demand appear to soften.

If you get past the point that probably every legacy airline still operating, under whatever name, has at some point received some form of Government support then it seems to me that the data is pretty supportive of the Big Three…….Middle East Carriers.

Since 2011, the market between the Indian Sub-Continent and North America has grown by 55%. That’s a significant rise from 1.9 million to over 2.9 million one way passengers in the three years to 2014, and for the latest available 12 month period to the end of June it has reached 3.5 million passengers. That’s pretty impressive growth by any standard and its not just growth at Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha; London Heathrow is the second largest gateway point with some 400,000-plus passengers compared to 264,000 in 2011.

And with large proportions of that passenger volume, over 50% in fact, connecting onwards in North America to a secondary domestic point, there is some lucrative interline feed there for the US Big Three to digest each day.

So aside from the obvious product, service, network and industry developments that the Middle East carriers have pioneered in recent years, perhaps their biggest role has been as much about market stimulation and subsequent impact on economic growth as seat pitch and inflight showers!”

  – J Grant, World Routes 2016