Air Service One – Bitesize Analysis of the Day – 31 July 2024

Today we take a look at the average sector length of Europe’s biggest (U)LCCs. AIR SERVICE ONE analysis of Cirium schedules data for August 2023 and August 2024 shows that Jet2.com and Jet2holidays and SunExpress have the longest average flights. This is not surprising as both are primarily ‘holiday’ airlines taking northern Europeans to southern Europe. These carriers will typically only manage four sectors per day on their aircraft. The likes of Ryanair and easyJet will usually aim for at least six sectors per day per aircraft.

Vueling Airlines (lots of domestic flights in Spain) and Volotea (lots of domestic flights in France, Greece, Italy and Spain) have the shortest average sector lengths.

Nine of these 12 airlines saw an increase in average sector length since last summer, the exceptions being the French part of Transavia, Vueling and Wizz Air.