Summary
- Air Senegal will now not serve Dakar to Barcelona, Lyon, Marseille, or Milan.
- Only its core path to Paris will remain.
- Elsewhere, Air Senegal’s Recent York JFK service may additionally change attributable to its poor seat load factor of just 67% in the primary nine months of 2023, per the US Department of Transportation.
It’s rare for an airline to chop nearly all of its network to a specific continent, but that’s what Air Senegal has done to Europe. Based on Aeroroutes, it has removed three of its 4 routes. It follows increased competition from carriers with stronger economics, and a payload restriction on its mostly used equipment, undermining route performance.
These will all be gone in January
As confirmed on Air Senegal’s website and in other booking engines, these routes stop to exist in mid-January. Cirium data indicates they were all reinstated in the course of the northern aviation winter 2020 season. As Air Senegal targets connecting passengers over Dakar, particular intra-African routes may additionally be impacted.
- Dakar-Barcelona: twice-weekly Airbus A319
- Dakar-Marseille-Lyon (triangular): twice-weekly; using the A321 per Flightradar24, mixed with the A319; it was fully A319 until earlier this yr and is scheduled to be by the smaller single-aisle equipment
- Dakar-Milan Malpensa: twice-weekly A321
Image: GCMAP
However the traffic is nice
Within the 12 months to September 2023, booking data suggests that Dakar-Milan had about 140,000 roundtrip point-to-point passengers, Barcelona 79,000, Lyon 58,000, and Marseille 51,000. P2P demand should underpin routes, even when in addition they carry transfer passengers.
Transavia uses 189-seat 737-800s with 58% more seats on the market, meaning notably lower seat-mile costs and requiring fewer passengers to interrupt even at a given fare. It operates from each Lyon and Marseille against Air Senegal’s triangular service.
While Air Senegal runs twice-weekly, Transavia is five weekly: three weekly from Lyon and twice-weekly from Marseille. This has significant competitive implications for the Senegalese flag carrier.
You may also argue that Transavia has a more enticing schedule, with daytime flights in each directions. In contrast, Air Senegal leaves Dakar for Marseille/Lyon at 01:00, designed to capture transit passengers.
Only Paris will remain in Europe
When writing on November twentieth, only Paris CDG is predicted to see Air Senegal. The Airbus A330neo service will remain every day aside from a six-weekly operation in January/February.
HC403 leaves Dakar at 00:45, and HC404 arrives back at 15:00, facilitating two-way connections to Abidjan, Bamako, Banjul, Cap Skirring, Conakry, Freetown, Nouakchott, Praia, and more.
What do you make of all of it? Tell us within the comments.
Sources: Aeroroutes (for the announcement), Cirium, OAG, Flightradar24, ch-aviation, booking data, US DOT T-100.