Transavia filled its planes this summer, but passengers are more price sensitive

This summer, Transavia returned to the occupancy rates of its planes seen before Covid-19, but must adapt to passengers who are increasingly sensitive to prices, one of the managers of the French airline said on Tuesday. “Demand was very good this summer, we found occupancy rates before the crisis”, i.e. around 90% compared to 83 to 84% during the summer of 2022, the deputy general commercial director told AFP. and marketing of the “low cost” of the Air France-KLM group, Nicolas Henin.

In July and August, Transavia France transported three million passengers, a figure “20% higher than in summer 2022” according to Nicolas Henin who noted “very dynamic demand across all European and South African destinations. North". Transavia, which currently operates 71 aircraft, plans to increase to 75 by summer 2024, thanks to the arrival of the first Airbus A320neo which will have replaced its fleet of Boeing 737s at the end of the decade.

After years of expansion, Transavia, which has not completed a profitable annual financial year since the start of the health crisis in 2020, wants to “stabilize (its) growth a little” but still intends to offer during the season summer 2024 15% more capacity than in 2023. This will involve strengthening existing destinations, but also offering new ones: Bergen (Norway) and Tallinn (Estonia). The company is thus responding to a growing demand from its customers for Northern Europe, as proven by the success of recent lines to Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen, according to Nicolas Henin: “Choices of destinations where it is a little less hot".

On the other hand, the fires in Greece at the end of July and the deadly earthquake in Morocco at the beginning of September did not have lasting effects on demand for these destinations, he assured: in particular, "the rebound in "The request for Morocco was very quick."

More broadly, Transavia, like other players in air transport, has noted a “beginning of a turnaround” in consumer behavior under the effect of inflation, while “until this summer, people were relatively insensitive at the price". This trend requires the company to “be able to put attractive prices back into the market”, in short to lower its call rates. It must therefore “work on (its) costs and (its) productivity”, according to Nicolas Henin.