Analysis Reports

When one thinks of West Africa it is rarely in connection with vacations - especially beach holidays, and certainly not upmarket ones.

But the region contains two countries: one a tiny crop of mainland surrounded by another country with a small but highly attractive coastline (The Gambia), and the other a wide-ranging archipelago to the west of it in the Atlantic Ocean. Both have benefitted hugely from mass tourism.

They both register 20%-25% of their GDP arising from that tourism. And both got started around the same time, in the late 1950s, with The Gambia initially racing ahead thanks to the foresight of a Swedish entrepreneur.

Cape Verde was slower out of the blocks but has clawed its way back, and then ahead, in the past two and a half decades, to become one of Africa's leading vacation destinations.

There are numerous factors that have influenced the rise and fall of both, including particularly the performance of the national carrier and that of foreign airlines serving them. Also, latterly, the decision in one case to let the private sector run its airports, while in the other it is still the responsibility of a government department.

Right now it is hard to argue against Cape Verde having the upper hand, but both countries rely on visitors from First World countries that face ever tougher economic challenges ahead and the vagaries of political relations.

Indeed, as if to underline how hard it can be to estimate demand, as this report was written The Gambia achieved 46% tourist growth in Jul-2025 - by far the highest figure in the whole of Africa.

This is part two of a two-part report.

When one thinks of West Africa it is rarely in connection with vacations - especially beach holidays, and certainly not upmarket ones.

But the region contains two countries: one a tiny crop of mainland surrounded by another country with a small but highly attractive coastline (The Gambia), and the other a wide-ranging archipelago to the west of it in the Atlantic Ocean (Cape Verde). Both have benefitted hugely from mass tourism.

They both register 20%-25% of their GDP arising from that tourism. And both got started around the same time, in the late 1950s, with The Gambia initially racing ahead thanks to the foresight of a Swedish entrepreneur.

Cape Verde was slower out of the blocks but has clawed its way back, and then ahead, in the past two and a half decades, to become one of Africa's leading vacation destinations.

There are numerous factors that have influenced the rise and fall of both, including particularly the performance of the national carrier and that of foreign airlines serving them. Also, latterly, the decision in one case to let the private sector run its airports, while in the other it is still the responsibility of a government department.

Right now it is hard to argue against Cape Verde having the upper hand, but both countries rely on visitors from First World countries that face ever tougher economic challenges ahead and the vagaries of political relations.

Indeed, as if to underline how hard it can be to estimate demand, as this report was written The Gambia achieved 46% tourist growth in Jul-2025 - by far the highest figure in the whole of Africa.

This is part one of a two-part report.

German air transport growth is presently hampered by aviation taxes, charges, security levies, ATC bills and environmentally oriented restrictions on fossil-produced fuels - it has fallen well behind other European countries in that respect.

One example is Düsseldorf Airport, Germany's fourth busiest, which was 5.5 million passengers down on its 2019 passenger total in 2024.

While CAPA - Centre for Aviation data suggests that German carriers have not deserted the airport, nor is long haul seat capacity actually down either since 2019, its management is hopeful that the long range and highly economic Airbus A321XLR aircraft will provide the catalyst towards generating pre-pandemic levels of passenger traffic once again and kick-start long haul capacity growth.

The target must be Lufthansa, its subsidiaries and other leading German airlines like Condor. The Lufthansa Group, in particular, is represented very thinly at the airport - indeed, at the sort of level associated with British Airways at UK regional airports, virtually invisible.

The problem is that none of those airlines seems to have placed an order for the Airbus A321XLR yet.

So the secondary target is foreign airlines.

But that requires a concentrated, focused marketing effort, not only by the airport, but by the city and the huge Rhine-Ruhr area, which is one of the most economically significant areas in Europe; never mind Germany, but that somehow seems to pass under the radar.

What is happening in European airline consolidation?

Turkish Airlines is to take a minority stake in Air Europa. Air France-KLM will increase its minority holding in SAS to a controlling stake. Air France-KLM, Lufthansa Group and IAG and possibly others are interested in buying up to 45% of TAP Air Portugal.

Lufthansa has a minority stake in ITA Airways and is expected to take control at some point in the future; it also has 10% of airBaltic.

This gives the impression of an industry that is finally consolidating.

However, these deals entail airlines with only a small market share, and most involve only minority stakes. The target airlines mainly have an intra-Europe seat share of just 1% or less. The biggest, SAS, has 2.8%.

It takes Europe's top 21 airline groups to match the 86% seat share of the top seven in North America, where consolidation has improved profitability. Recreating North American market concentration in Europe would need deals between the largest European groups.

As illustrated in this report, this remains a fantasy. What is happening in European airline consolidation?

Not enough, but we can dream.

The CAPA Airline Leader Summit Latin America & Caribbean 2025 in Lima, Peru featured a stellar lineup of high-level speakers and panellists covering a wide range of critical industry topics.

These highlights cover a selection of the key insights from the packed agenda of in-depth interviews, keynote presentations and expert panel discussions.

For full coverage of the CAPA Airline Leader Summit Latin America & Caribbean and more, visit the CAPA - Centre for Aviation website or add the CAPA Events category to your custom news Alerts.

With the three major Australasian airlines all releasing their annual results within a 24-hour span in 3Q2025, new details emerged that shed more light on their fleet and capacity plans.

Senior executives from Qantas, Virgin Australia and Air New Zealand had already shared a lot of information about their companies during the CAPA Australia Pacific Airline Leader Summit on 31-Jul-2025, prompting a recent two-part analysis of their plans: Australasian airlines make progress on fleet upgrades: part one - Qantas and Air Niugini; part two - Air New Zealand & Virgin Australia.

However, enough additional commentary came out of the earnings briefings that another update is warranted.

The major new development was Qantas almost doubling its firm orders for Airbus A321XLRs for its full-service fleet, with plans for a new cabin configuration. The airline also fleshed out the picture a little more regarding the launch of its 'Project Sunrise'.

Air New Zealand has bumped up its order for Boeing 787 widebodies, but in the shorter term it continues to face major issues due to aircraft availability.

Virgin Australia, meanwhile, is confident that its Boeing 737 MAX delivery stream will increase significantly in the current fiscal year, after slowing to a trickle in the previous year.

All three airlines were solidly profitable in the fiscal year 2025 - but, as usual, it was some of the other commentary that proved more interesting.

Fiscal year 2026 began on 1-Jul-2025 for the three airlines.

WestJet's recent significant order with Boeing is a move to ensure that it has an ample pipeline of aircraft for the foreseeable future.

But the more intriguing element of its latest aircraft order is the doubling of its young fleet of Boeing 787 widebodies.

The airline put a freeze on its widebody growth in 2022, and opted to base all the twin-aisle jets at its headquarters and largest base at Calgary. But even though the airline capped widebody expansion, WestJet's twin-aisle operations have appeared to be successful during the past couple of years.

Now, with the resumption of widebody growth, the question is: how and where will WestJet deploy its new 787s?

Over the 13 years of the airport concession by auction programme in Brazil the one airport that has never been privatised is Rio de Janeiro's Santos Dumont; which is essentially a domestic facility. Indeed that still is the case, and one of the main reasons is - that it was at one time the only airport actually making any money for the state operator Infraero, once the auction programme got seriously under way.

Now a second reason has arisen.

As a state facility it can be told what to do, and what it was required to do was to cap movements and passenger numbers as a way of artificially inflating both at the Galeão airport - the main international gateway to Rio which, for various reasons, had fallen on hard times.

That plan, brought into play by President 'Lula', since early in 2023, has worked, thereby enabling Galeão to be reconcessioned as a going concern. That procedure is expected to take place by Mar-2026.

In the meantime, there is a new kid on the block - Vinci Compass, a Brazilian asset manager and speculator that has no connection to France's VINCI Airports (which itself does have airport assets in Brazil).

Vinci Compass has no experience specifically of the airport sector, but plenty of infrastructure familiarity generally. It has acquired substantial equity from Singapore's Changi Airports International, a founder concessionaire investor, and will bid for Infraero's entire 49% stake when it comes up for grabs next year.

If successful, it would dominate a Brazilian airport concession like never before, and one that is close to its heart as a Rio de Janeiro-based company.

That has all sorts of implications for other concessioned airports, as Infraero continues its winding-down policy as an airport investor at this level.

It also begs the question: now that its job is done to rescue Galeão - should Santos Dumont now be privatised as well, and a line drawn under the active concession procedure, long dubbed as a soap opera, which has pretty well completed its task?

Whereas international travel to Thailand has declined overall this year, inbound flows from India have gone from strength to strength.

Most of Thailand's major tourist markets have weakened in 2025, reversing steady growth trends since the end of COVID-19 pandemic-era restrictions.

The recent downturn has been most evident in Thailand's largest visitor market - mainland China.

But visitor numbers from India are continuing to climb. This underlines the post-pandemic boom in Indian tourism that has been a theme for many Asia Pacific countries.

Naturally, airlines from both countries have followed the demand trend by increasing - or launching - services between India and Thailand.

Part one of this analysis described the overall decline in Thailand's visitor numbers, while part two looks more specifically at the India-Thailand market.

While the drop in Thailand's tourist numbers is becoming more evident as the year progresses, the Indian market offers a rare bright spot as travel between the two countries surges to new highs.

The Jul-2025 border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia is undoubtedly a major reason for the Thai tourism decline, although there are also other factors affecting inbound demand.

The net result is that Thailand's steady post-pandemic recovery in international travel and capacity is being derailed in 2025.

Thai tourism agencies now acknowledge that visitor targets for 2025 are unlikely to be achieved - such an outcome is a big deal for one of the region's most important tourism markets.

Although most of Thailand's largest inbound source markets - most notably China - have seen a year-on-year decline, Indian visitors have increased.

Thailand's situation underlines a post-pandemic trend for many countries that have meant that Indian outbound travel flows have risen faster than those from other markets. This has helped offset the slower rebound of historically strong markets, such as China and Japan.

Part one of this analysis will focus on the overall drop in Thailand's inbound tourism, and part two will look at the more positive growth story of India-Thailand flows.