Air Seat Growth Projected for Second Quarter

Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-800 over Molokai cliffs. Photo courtesy of Alaska Airlines.

By Sonia Isotov

The Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) is forecasting 5.8% growth in total scheduled seat capacity between April and June 2012.

The HTA has released its Airline Seat Capacity Outlook Report for the second quarter of 2012 and total scheduled seat capacity to the state is expected to climb to 5.8% over the same period last year.

Total scheduled seat capacity growth will be buoyed by gains from US West and all of Hawaii’s major international source markets. This projection is based on flights appearing in OAG and Sabre airline schedules as of March 2012.

Highlights from the report:

• Scheduled seats from Japan are expected to increase 20.8% in the second quarter of 2012, mainly due to rising seats from Osaka (44.7%) and Nagoya (51.6%), and recently launched Fukuoka to Honolulu flights by both Delta Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines.
  

  Hawaii airline seat capacity outlook. 2nd Quarter 2012. Courtesy of Hawaii Tourism Agency.

• Air service additions by both Air Canada and WestJet are expected to grow nonstop seats from Canada to Hawai‘i by 3.9% in the second quarter of 2012 over the same period of last year. A 9.7% increase in seats from Vancouver is expected to more than off-set year-over-year decreases in flights from Calgary (-26.4%) and Edmonton (-25.3%).

• Other Asia is expected to continue to be Hawaii’s fastest growing region for scheduled air seats during the April through June 2012 period, with anticipated gains from both South Korea (+22.9%) and China Eastern Airlines’ new flights from Shanghai to Honolulu.

• Oceania, boosted by gains from both Australia (16.4%) and New Zealand (10.2%), is the state’s second fastest growing region with air seats expected to grow 15.7% in the second quarter of 2012.

• Scheduled second quarter seats from the US West region are expected to rise 2.8%, with significant increases in capacity from Oakland (83.8%), San Diego (46.9%) and San Jose (97.7%) driving this growth.

• Pulled down by American Airlines’ suspension of nonstop service from Chicago, scheduled seats from the US East region are expected to decrease by 12.3% in the second quarter. The US East outlook improves toward the end of the second quarter, boosted by the launch of Hawaiian Airlines’ nonstop flights from New York and United Airlines’ nonstops from Washington, DC in June, along with the resumption of American Airlines’ Chicago flights during the peak summer travel season.

For a copy of the complete report, please click here.