Air transport in the servicing of Polish tour operators – Part I

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the air carriers servicing the largest Polish tour operators. In an absolute majority of tourist ventures organised by Polish tour operators it is aircraft that are used as the primary means of transport, along with possibly one or more other means. Where mass tourist traffi c is concerned, fl ights are supplied mainly as the charters which will be described in detail in the second part of this paper (to be published in Przegląd Geografi czny, 2015, 87, 4). In the fi rst part of this paper it is therefore scheduled air traffi c, including low-cost airlines, that is analysed. However, a scheduled fl ight may be taken in relation to various goals and purposes of travel, including gainful employment, business trips, family visits and individual tourism. Therefore it is only to some extent that this kind of fl ight is connected with tourist traffi c organised en masse. To a greater extent, scheduled fl ights are used by the smaller tour operators, as focused in the direction of special segments of the market. Examples here would be Atas, Active Travel, Misja Travel, Espace Trans, Delta Travel, Top Travel Incentives or Pol Tur, all of which may be unable to fi ll an aircraft or even the greater part of one, single-handed. In such situations it may even be the case that participants on a small group travel offer buy air tickets on their own, individually. Scheduled carriers are also used by larger tour operators, but it is not easy to determine the degree to which such cooperation takes place. Thus, despite quite good statistics being available on scheduled air traffi c, data on this are only concerned with organised tourist traffi c to a limited extent, while domestic traffi c does not concern it at all. For this reason, in what follows in this paper, scheduled traffi c is described briefl y, while foreign charter traffi c will be presented extensively in Part II. It should nevertheless be recalled that charter fl ights can also be provided by scheduled (full-service or low-cost) airlines. By and large, a common feature of air carriers is their great variety in cooperation with tour operators. In 2012, Polish airports served a total of 24.6 million passengers, including 3.6 million in domestic, and slightly more than 21 million in international, traffi c. That still leaves the mobility coeffi cient as low as 0.565 in the case of Poland, though this is increasing slowly. The value proves that Poland is a country in which the air-transport market is in the process of development. According to information from Poland’s Civil Aviation Authority (ULC), an absolutely predominant share of the traffi c among scheduled airlines on the Polish market is taken by just 25 carriers, given that some 98.68% of all passengers are served by them. Table 5 offers a concise characterisation of the largest carriers, and the tour operators cooperating with them. Not in every case could cooperating tour operators even be found since, as has already been noted, scheduled carriage serves various purposes, and not fi rst and foremost the servicing of organised tourist traffi c. Amongst the larger scheduled carriers there is LOT Polish Airlines with its affi liate EuroLOT, which jointly serve 29.1% of all passengers and cooperate with many of the largest tour operators (e.g. Itaka, Rainbow Tours, Neckermann Polska and Exim Tours), as well as smaller ones (e.g. Espace Trans and Top Travel Incentives). When the most important directions of fl ights (the UK, Ireland, Germany and Norway) are considered, the number-2 scheduled carrier - the Irish low-cost line Ryanair - is seen to cater fi rst and foremost for gainful-employment trips, rather than those based around tourism. Another low-cost, the Hungarian Wizz Air, serves both segments of the market and cooperates with several tour operators (Itaka, Rainbow Tours, Otium Polska, Espace Trans and Pol Tur). Finally, the fourth most signifi cant carrier on the Polish market – the full-service carrier Lufthansa – in fact offers various kinds of carriage, including of tourists and in cooperation with certain Polish tour operators (see Table 5). Taking into account the numbers of passengers using scheduled airlines, the Polish carriers (mainly LOT Polish Airlines + EuroLOT, OLT Express Regional, EuroLOT and OLT Express Poland) jointly served 34.56% of all passengers. In turn, the share of the low-cost carriers in scheduled traffi c in Poland in 2012 was 47.40%. This refl ects the activity of such LCCs as Ryanair, Wizz Air, easyJet, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Air Berlin and several smaller lines.