Editorial

Tourism & the Financials of Sport

Comments recently by the boss of United Airlines in the USA regarding the impact on travel that staging the Summer Olympics in 2028 will create, seems to have caused quite a stir in North America. Just why this is so is head scratching, but perhaps those doubting his words need to get their heads out of the North American sand and discover for themselves how the real world not only thinks, but also how it works.

Going back as far as 1998, the Football World Cup was hosted by France and that means France not Paris. Post tournament, the French Tourist Board noted that the actual number of visitors to the country decreased during the period the event was taking place, probably down to the fear of potential regular summer holidaymakers that everywhere would be overly busy and more expensive than it usually is. France was also the recent host of last year’s Summer Olympics hosted by the city Paris which resulted in comments from Air France/KLM that they were down over 160m Euros in revenue as travellers changed their travel habits to avoid their main Paris hub during the summer. In 2012 London played host to the Summer Olympics and analysis after the games revealed a dip in visitor numbers to the UK and slow retail spend during the games. The visitors that did travel to the UK were there for a specific purpose and not to holiday nor spend money.

Not only is the USA hosting the Summer Olympics in 2028, but they are also one of the joint hosts of the 2026 Football World Cup along with Mexico and Canada. Again, in theory that should boost overall visitor numbers and hence the financials of many businesses as well as airlines. The fact that numerous cities across North America will play host to matches may however once again have the indirect result that non footballing fans will steer clear not just from the host cities but also from the USA itself. That is, assuming football fans will be allowed entry into the USA which is far from guaranteed.  It’s yet another question how the USA authorities will handle tens or even hundreds of thousands of football fans converging on the city their team are playing a match in and with only a small percentage having tickets for the game. A sporting scenario the USA has not encountered in the real life of football. It’s also not the best idea to ask the host cities how hosting so many matches in such dispersed locations helps reduce the carbon footprint when fans have to travel around by plane due to such huge distances between the venues. However, we digress so as not to upset the financial narrative.

The statement by the United Airlines boss thus not only is a reasonable one for 2028, it would also appear to be realistic for 2026 as well. Just how the bottom-line focussed shareholders and executives in the corporate world of the USA react to this scenario is another question. Maybe we will see court actions taken out against FIFA (the Football Authority responsible for the Football World Cup) if there is a sense that someone other than them might make financial gain whilst they do not. It is America after all.

Mark Thomas

Summer Extension – Easier said than done

Where’s the Logic?

What happens in the USA usually finds its way across the pond to Europe; or does it. The US Transportation Administration has announced it is ending its “shoes off” policy at domestic security checkpoints! Anyone still reading this will now be scratching their heads.

The policy of taking shoes off was first initiated in 2006 after a nutter tried to blow up a plane using explosives hidden in his shoe.  The practice has however largely disappeared in Europe although random people wearing large boots may still be asked to put them through the security scanner.

So, aside of the bewildering fact that it’s still mandatory in the USA for domestic flights, what about international flights, aren’t or weren’t they a security risk?

Partners on the Line

The new found willingness of train operators to actually work together rather than against each other is continuing to grow momentum. Now the German, Czech and Danish state-owned rail operators have joined together to introduce a new direct rail connection between Prague and Copenhagen. The connection operates via Berlin with the Czech owned trains travelling at 230 kmph and carrying 555 passengers.

The leg between Copenhagen and Berin takes 7 hours with stops in Dresden and Hamburg. The total journey time between Copenhagen and Prague will be 11 hours.

One wonders if EU funding is driving this initiative?

Life Goes On

Whilst talking about different types of planes is something of an anorak topic, the interest and indeed on-going curiosity that the A380 “Superjumbo” attracts both from the media and from travellers has probably only been matched by Concorde.

The A380 programme run by Airbus promised a lot but possibly under achieved, yet, the fascination with it continues and if anything, the machine is having something of a renaissance after plans for its funeral were hatched during Covid.

Of all the commercial passenger airlines that currently operate the A380, which is 10, by far the biggest is Emirates which has 116 in its fleet, a number that once reached 123. The figures accounts for roughly half the A380’s ever built i.e. 251.

What is also interesting is that Emirates has stated publicly that it intends to operate the A380 fleet until 2040 where previously it had a mid 2030’s life span. The travelling public who uses these planes will no doubt be pleased with this news.

Is this a case of demand driving supply in the traditional sense – despite the accountants?

Electric Turn Off

According to the latest figures churned out by the EU, 1.45 million new battery only electric cars were registered in the EU during 2024. That’s great, except that’s a 6.1% reduction on the number registered the previous year. The total of battery only electric cars in service is now 5.87 million.

If you like more figures connected with electric cars then the market share of battery only electric cars fell to 13.6% of all cars registered. Plug in hybrid sales also declined by 6.5% year on year. The countries with the largest percentage of battery only electric cars registered last year were Denmark 51.4%, Malta 37.7% and Sweeden 34.9%. The lowest shares were in Croatia 1.8%, Slovakia 2.4% and Poland 3.00%.

Looking beyond the data being churned out and the sort of story that gets buried in the back pages of nowhere as it doesn’t sit well with the electric narrative, maybe the real story. That is, people have sussed out electric vehicles and for most part they are either not fit for purpose or they are too expensive. One has only to look at the Car Hire companies who have now largely turned their back on electric vehicles for commercial reasons to see a real-life example of this. That is aside of increasing realisation that the carbon footprint of electric vehicles from beginning to the end of the process and life cycle makes diesel engines even more attractive! That can’t be stated however.

The next step for gathering control back of the electric narrative will be a shift from encouraging the uptake of such vehicles to one of forced adoption.

Thanks but no Thanks

Airlines regionalising their Help (!) desks/call centres and dispensing with local set ups is now the standard mode of operation. The quality of help/service one gets from such centres can vary from being OK to appalling. Indeed, many airline managers off the record will admit that their personal   biggest issue is their own call centres!  So, congratulations must go to the Lufthansa passenger who, flying from Lisbon – Frankfurt – Finland was advised that due to their flight time being changed by one hour and twenty minutes on the Frankfurt to Finland flight, she had been re-routed via New York! In other words; Lisbon – New York – Frankfurt – Finland.

The passenger politely pointed out she would keep the retimed Frankfurt – Finland flight even though it was amended by 1 hr 20 mins as the flight from Lisbon arrived in Frankfurt the night before and they were sleeping in Frankfurt regardless – something that was obvious on the original itinerary and the time change had zero impact.

The word common sense springs to mind but also, is there something else at play here: AI perhaps? No human can surely be so stupid to suggest the proposed change, not least because the person would require a USA ESTA (visa) to travel to the USA in the first place. Something that any travel professional (human) would know and would point out before suggesting such a move. Would AI?

Istanbul on the Up Again

Istanbul Airport has set a new European record for daily passengers with 272,132 travellers passing through it on the 27^th July, beating the previous record of 268,000 set in June 2024 at London Heathrow Airport.

This performance of Istanbul shows how the balance of power is shifting eastwards in such a measure. Istanbul recently upgraded its operating systems to allow flights from all of its three runways to operate at the same time. This increases its operational capacity from 120 to 148 flights per hour.

Turn Back the Clock to Survive

The cyber-attack on several of Europe’s main airports this month highlighted the shortcomings of business’s relying solely on technology. The check in and baggage drop processes were the areas of “pain” and a quick fix was for a manual check ins process to be engaged; an aspect airlines have been trying to get rid of for years in the interest of “efficiency”, tied in of course to cost cutting.

Putting your eggs in one basket is a risky stance in this day and age and any business who relies heavily on technology may well be placing all their eggs on red on a roulette wheel. Having the ability and capability to turn the clock back and work manually may soon become defacto the norm for businesses.

In this day and age, bank robbers don’t go to the bank anymore and there is also the irony that is not lost on many with common sense and with business experience that storing vital data such as bank or card details may well be safer on a piece of paper buried away somewhere rather than being stored in technology. Ironic but not necessarily incorrect.

White Data?

Data connected with Bulgarian tourism has always a small-time delay and the latest numbers show that during the month of July, the total revenue spent in Bulgarian accommodation increased by 15.9% year on year. The other part of the equation is that tourism numbers were up (just) 3.6%. This latter figure was made up of an 5.2% increase from non-Bulgarian residents and a 1.9% increase from Bulgarian residents. The conclusion being that there has been hefty increase in the cost of the accommodation; a fact that might have wider implications in the longer term.

Of course, there is always the possibility that the cost of room nights has not increased by 15.9% but the method of accountancy is now more white than black. A cynical comment that gains more credibility the more people use cards as a form of payment.

Ryanair Goes Digital

Ryanair still plans to end the use of paper boarding passes on November 12^th which means that passengers will have to check in via the airlines mobile app.

This assumes that every Ryanair passenger has a smart phone! The airline itself claims that already 80% of its 206 million passengers use digital boarding passes; which implies that over 42 million don’t.  So will that mean they lose 40 million passengers; only time will tell. The move clearly aims to alienate it with older passengers.

Ryanair, perhaps second guessing the issues it will face including possible legal challenges from the EU, are attempting to placate dissenting voices by saying that in the event of technical failure, passengers who have already checked in will still be allowed to board using a sequence generated number generated at check in.

Assuming of course there is a Check in with human beings.

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