Who are the airlines of Eurovision 2024?
Flights to the annual song contest showcase the international nature of European aviation
Yes, it’s Eurovision weekend! The annual jamboree of sparkly costumes, flashy lights and whacky performances is finally here once more. I have my national flag ready to wave. Do you?
This year the contest is being held in the Swedish city of Malmö (pictured), close to Denmark. So if we were scoring airlines based on their contribution of bringing passengers to the contest it would be no surprise to see Scandinavian flag carrier SAS winning the coveted douze-points.
However figuring out the airlines the top five or so places is much more interesting and has lessons for European aviation.
Malmö is in the south-west of Sweden and my maps app tells me it is only 27 miles from Copenhagen. The two countries are connected over and under the sea by the Øresund Bridge and Drobden Tunnel.
Malmö has it’s own airport (code: MMX) but there are not so many flights. In run-up to the grand final Wednesday to 3pm on Saturday there will have been 33 flights into Malmö, against 1,125 into Copenhagen (code: CPH). Most Eurovision passengers travelling by air will fly into Copenhagen.
I evaluated all the arriving flights at MMX/CPH from every country participating in Eurovision this year to establish the airlines who are most committed to the contest.
There are other routes, but I doubt that SK936 arriving from San Francisco or CA877 from Beijing will be packed with Eurovision fans.
I also preferred to count the number of flights rather than the number of seats because if you start counting seats Emirates will win everything with their A380s (OK, not this thing, but you get the idea…). Number of flights reflects commitment of both slots and aircraft to the contest. Seats might only reflect commitment of aircraft.
Let’s take a look at some maps, all produced with the excellent Great Circle Mapper.
98 flights to both Malmö and Copenhagen:
17 flights to Malmö only:
896 flights to Copenhagen only:
But the airports within the circle are less than 150 miles from Copenhagen. I doubt that many people will fly rather than drive or take the train on these routes. Removing them leaves 823 flights.
Finally we have 147 flights on non-Eurovision routes:
This table shows how many flights are operated by each airline group:
No surprises that SAS is top of the table. Also no surprise that Greater Lufthansa comprising Lufty itself, Austrian, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings and Swiss scores 9.
Look at the remaining three in the top five: Norwegian, Ryanair and easyJet. The reason these airlines do so well is that they are multi-national operators.
The arrivals boards actually specify which easyJet air operator certificate (AOC) is handling the flight in question. The split is easyJet Europe 33, easyJet UK 14 and easyJet Switzerland 11.
20 of Norwegian’s 157 flights are ex-UK. Only 32 are ex-Norway.
Flights to the contest show how multi-national European aviation really is. In sixth and seventh place are multi-national groups Air France-KLM and IAG.
Considering that SAS is also a multi-national group, 83.7% of flights from Eurovision participating countries are by multi-national airlines. That is truly in the spirit of Eurovision.
Down in the diadora league (non-scoring part of the table), honourable mention must go to Ethiopian Airlines, who operate a wide-body. Their usual 315-seat 787 operating fifth freedom from Addis Ababa has been up-gauged to a 321-seat 777 for the Friday and Saturday only.
I think it is a coincidence because there are not that many extra seats and the flight that departed on Friday morning looked wide open based on the GDS seat map.
Back to the contest, your favourite airline revenue economist is rooting for Windows95man from Finland, whose act is pretty crazy. Readers of a nervous disposition should be warned that his performance is not for the faint of heart before searching!
Don’t forget to tune in to the Grand Final at 7pm GMT tomorrow, Saturday 11-May. YOU KNOW YOU LOVE IT!
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